The infirmary still smelled of steel and smoke.
Candles guttered along the stone walls, their flames trembling as if they, too, remembered the battle. The night beyond the high, cracked windows was bruised purple, heavy with ash drifting from the outer courtyards.
Through the haze, faint shouts could still be heard—Slayers calling to one another, servants dragging the wounded through the mud, the echoes of command and fear tangled together.
Aiden sat upright on the cot, his body bandaged but his mind far from rest. Amber knelt beside him, her hands glowing with faint green as she worked another thread of healing through his ribs.
Behind him, Akinda moved with the careful efficiency of someone refusing to show her exhaustion—wringing out bloodied cloths, replacing poultices, whispering the small prayers taught to battlefield medics.
The air felt thick, suspended between breaths.
