The first rumor reached me three days after the battle.

A merchant from Ironwood territory stopped by the academy to deliver supplies. Standard trade, nothing unusual. Except he asked the guard at the gate if it was true that our new military commander had lost half her forces in a single morning.

"Where'd you hear that?" the guard asked.

The merchant shrugged. "Word travels. People talk."

Half. Not forty-seven out of three hundred. Half.

I found Caleb in the archives, sorting through ...