The post-battle night seemed to go on forever.

The smoke was as dense as the fog, and the fires were still smoldering in low spots throughout the camp. Iron and ash filled the air, and my surviving soldiers were walking ghosts amid the injured.

But none of it was going to stay with me.

She was the one.

Matilda.

I had previously witnessed her fight and witnessed both her strength and her defiance. But this evening, I witnessed something very different.

The gravity of some of her ...