I've always hated the quiet after blood.
There's something suffocating about it—how the wind dares to blow gently, how the trees pretend they weren't just silent witnesses to cruelty. How people joke and laugh to fill in the emptiness that remains after violence has passed.
We spent the seventh day resting, if you could call it that.
Our makeshift camp was a mess of bodies—some bandaged, others sleeping, some sitting silently with faraway eyes. A few students had cracked. Garrick hadn't said a word since last night. Just sat by the fire sharpening a blade that didn't need sharpening. Mira kept busy tending wounds, but I noticed the way her hands shook when she thought no one was watching. Felix kept trying to tell jokes, like always. Even worse ones now.
"Okay, okay," he said, hopping between stones near the creek. "If a fire mage and a water mage fall in love, do they—get steamy?"
Nobody laughed.
He gave a half-hearted chuckle and dropped back onto a log. "Tough crowd."
