The sun didn't rise over the Northern front so much as it simply bled a thin, anemic grey across the horizon. It was a miserable excuse for the morning. The camp, usually a clockwork of military precision, looked like a dog-eared manuscript, frayed, stained, and missing several vital pages. Chunks of blackened canvas flapped listlessly in a wind that tasted of wet ash and old copper.
There was no victory song. No cheering. Just the hollow thud-thud of hammers against wood and the low, jagged coughing of men who had inhaled too much smoke.
Zarius was right there, at the heart of the whole scene. He looked like he hadn't slept, hadn't blinked, and definitely wasn't about to bend for anyone. He hadn't changed his clothes, yet he looked more composed than any man had a right to be after facing down a Velkyn swarm. His orders from the small hours of the night had already been etched into the camp's reality, that no one used the stones.
