"It is getting dark," Sun Longzi muttered, his voice low and almost lost in the wind.
The battlefield had finally quieted. Smoke still clung to the air like an afterthought, and the heat had not yet fully faded, but the worst of the fire had burned itself out. A temporary stillness settled across the field like a blanket drawn over the dead.
Shi Yaozu slowed his steps beside Zhao Xinying. His blades were still coated in blood, his eyes sharp, and his stance alert. Though her mist had begun to withdraw to the edges of the field, it still curled lazily in the air—unsettled, watchful.
They had won.
Or at the very least, no one else was daring enough to challenge them now.
Sun Longzi approached from the flank, his horse trotting wearily through the wreckage. Blood ran in a thin line down the side of his face, and a crack split the chest plate of his armor. He looked exhausted but steady.
