Third Person’s POV
The land was quiet again. Not the uneasy silence that follows battle, but a calm that felt earned. Walls were repaired. Borders were secure. Fires burned for warmth, not warning. The packs moved forward, slowly learning how to live without fear.
The war had taken much. But it had not taken everything.
Madison’s POV
Peace felt strange at first.
I woke up every morning expecting alarms, pain, blood on my hands. My body still moved like I was in a battlefield hospital, ready to heal wounds that no longer came.
Austin noticed.
“You don’t sleep,” he said one night as we sat together near the window.
“I don’t know how,” I admitted.
He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “You don’t have to be strong anymore.”
That scared me more than war ever had.
If I wasn’t survi
