Morning arrived without ceremony.
The sky was pale and thin, washed of color as though the world itself had not yet decided whether it deserved brightness after the night before. Dew clung to trampled grass, to broken shafts of arrows, to the darkened earth where blood had soaked in and been left to dry.
Isolde woke before the camp fully stirred.
She did not rise in alarm. There was no sudden dread, no lingering echo of steel. Only the weight of consequence—settling slowly, heavily, into her chest.
The ambush had ended hours ago. The wounded had been stabilized. Fires still burned low, their embers guarded by sleepless soldiers whose eyes tracked every shadow beyond the camp perimeter.
Isolde dressed quietly and stepped outside her tent.
The smell met her first: smoke, damp cloth, iron. The scent of survival after violence.
She walked the camp without escort.
That, in itself, was noticed.
