Three days later..
The carriage wheels clacked steadily against the cracked stone road, the rhythm oddly jarring against the silence inside.
Atlas sat with his legs stretched forward, one boot tapping unconsciously against the brass latch on the bench. The file sat in his lap like a slab of iron—too heavy, too damning. His fingers were smudged with ink, pages dog-eared and scrawled with frantic marginalia. The smell of parchment, sweat, and old blood clung to the air like smoke.
He turned the last page again, as if this time the truth might rise from the paper like a ghost.
"…Air attack…" he muttered, voice half-broken by disbelief. "All these damn reports say air attack. But what kind of air attack does this? We had ten thousand men. Denish, Kury—these weren't farm boys and wet-blade recruits. They were the kingdom's finest. They were legends."
He stared at a torn map insert, a red X slashed across the canyon perimeter. A battlefield that no longer existed.
