The combined army of Winters and Snowe entered the capital on a morning of cold, clear sunlight that seemed to wash the city in absolution.
More than eight thousand soldiers marched through the eastern gate in disciplined columns, their armor battered, their banners faded by weeks of mountain wind and combat, their faces bearing the particular expression of people who had walked through hell and discovered, against all expectation, that the other side still existed. The city's walls loomed above them as they passed beneath the iron portcullis ...walls that had been built to withstand sieges but that would have been meaningless against the dissolution zone that had been twelve hours from escaping the Thessara valley.
