Chapter 61 The Edge Of What Remains

• The dawn came hollow and silver, pressing frost against the broken earth. Elira sat on a crumbling stone wall just beyond the camp’s perimeter, her cloak wrapped tight, hands buried beneath the folds. She hadn’t slept. She couldn’t. Not after the night before. Not after the quiet, soul-shaking way Kael had kissed her like it might be the last time.
• The war pressed closer with each hour, like iron walls closing in. The scouts returned with smoke on their backs and urgency in their eyes. The enemy had moved again—faster, bolder. The cursed lands that once offered protection had thinned. There would be no more shadows to hide in.
• She watched the sky shift into pale gold and thought of the stories she used to tell herself about heroes who rose when the world fell apart. None of them ever spoke of how afraid those heroes must have been. How exhausted. How hollowed out by everything they had to give up to keep going.