Smoke still lingered in the air, veiling the battlefield in an eerie twilight even as dawn threatened the horizon. The scent of scorched earth and blood hung thick, and silence stretched like a taut string across the field. Wolves limped among the wounded. Others knelt beside the dead. The light of the twin moons faded, replaced by the haunting memory of the battle that had just shaken the world.

Aria stood at the center of it all.

The charred feather that had once been Mara’s talisman ...