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Sunlight bled into the corners of New Providence, gilding terracotta walls and crowning stone towers, only to spill upon the square below - where the dead lay heaped in mounds that rose to a Hou-ziβs shoulders. It was not a sight the bards would sing about. The air was foul, the stench unbearable, and in Victoriaβs hollow stomach churned a sickness deeper than any hunger she had felt before. Her blade still wept with the lifeblood of those she had once called companions - of Erik Othaman, her mentor, her guide.
From the shadowed doors of the Novellen Tavern, her squire emerged - armor untarnished, gleaming as though the world had not yet touched him, untested, unscarred, unbroken.
βDid we do it? Did we win?β
Her reply came soft, not crowned with triumph, but steeped in the quiet weight of loss.
βNo,β whispered the Once-Princess, her gaze not upon the ruin below, but lifted to a lone gull from Henry's Wharf, wheeling far above, its pale wings cleaving the heavens as though the sky itself longed to turn away from what had been wrought.
The boyβs eyes wandered through the carnage, and at last they fixed upon the captive Emperor.
βBut Peter lies in chains,β he said, voice catching. βAnd his commanders - dead.β
Victoriaβs vision drifted from the gull and fell upon her squire. She raised her hand, laying it gently upon his shoulder - an anchor, or perhaps a farewell.
βIf victory looks like this,β she murmured, βmay you never live to see what defeat becomes.β
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