"In the silence before war, love becomes a vow whispered between storms not of peace, but of purpose."
MARCUS'S POV
The sky was a bruised, early morning gray, mirroring the raw exhaustion that clung to every man and woman in the Northern Castle. It had been a long night of wall-to-wall repairs following the ambush, culminating in the final, agonizing silence before Alaric's massive Breakthrough began hours ago. Now, all we could do was wait for the battle to resolve itself on the plains.
