I woke up to the cold, heavy silence of the ruined fortress, the air thick with the acrid stench of lingering dark magic. My head throbbed painfully, the remnants of yesterday's battle still echoing in my mind. Every muscle in my body ached, and as I shifted to sit up, the dust that had settled on my skin and clothes made me cough. The remnants of what had been our battlefield were all around us—shattered stone, scorched earth, and the eerie stillness of a place that had seen too much violence.
For a moment, I stayed there, disoriented, trying to piece together my thoughts. The victory from the day before felt hollow, the weight of it pressing down on me like a physical burden. The vision of that dark figure, the revelation of its true nature, and the desperate choices we had made all swirled in my mind like a storm. I couldn't shake the feeling that we had barely scraped through by the skin of our teeth, and the cost was beginning to show.
