The Blackwood did not smell of pine anymore.
It smelled of iron, shit, and cooked meat. The silence after the battle was worse than the noise. It was filled with low moans, the crackle of dying fires, and the frantic buzzing of flies already finding the feast.
Noella stood at the edge of the fissure Volsei had cut into the earth. She looked down at the tangled bodies of Tombsrose soldiers who had fallen in. Her face was a mask of pale, composed marble. Inside, her mind was a whirlwind of data.
Casualty estimates: Enemy KIA: 180-200. Enemy WIA/Captured: 50-70. Enemy Fled: <30. Eden forces: 7 wounded (1 serious, Rylan). 0 KIA. Tactical efficiency rating: 98.7%.
The numbers were perfect. The reality was a charnel house.
Kael limped up to her, his one hand gripping a bloodied spear as a crutch. "We've rounded up the survivors, Princess. The ones that can walk. Forty-three. A few officers."
"Secure them. Separate the officers. I want them interrogated. Not by you. By me."
Kael nodded, his eyes on her face, looking for the revulsion he felt. He saw only calculation. It was more comforting than he expected. "And the wounded? Theirs, I mean."
Noella's mismatched eyes swept the field. A Tombsrose soldier, his leg a ruin, was trying to crawl towards a water skin. "If they can be stabilized and transported, bring them. They are prisoners of war and future bargaining chips. If they cannot... end their suffering. Efficiently."
Her voice didn't waver. Kael swallowed. "Aye, Princess."
He moved off, barking orders to the volunteers, who moved among the dead and dying with a mixture of horror and grim purpose.
Volsei was sitting on a fallen log, cleaning his knife. He moved with a slow, deliberate rhythm that seemed off. Noella approached.
"You're tired," she stated.
He didn't look up. "A little."
"It's more than physical."
He paused, then gave a single, slight nod. "The wide cuts. The sustained precision. It... draws from something. A reservoir. It refills, but slowly."
"Soul-fatigue," Noella said, filing the term away. "Quantifiable? Measurable?"
He finally looked at her. A faint, weary amusement touched his eyes. "Not by your instruments. It's a feeling. Like a hollow behind my ribs. A cold spot."
"Can you fight?"
"Right now? Against a squad, yes. Against an army, no. Not like that." He sheathed his knife. "It's a limit. You should know it."
"I will factor it in." She crouched in front of him, her gown staining in the bloody mud. "You won't hide it from me. Not if it affects our strategy."
Their eyes locked. He saw no pity, only a demand for accurate data. It was the least condescending response possible.
"I won't," he promised.
"Good. Come. I need you for the interrogations. Your presence is a psychological tool."
\\-\\\--
The senior surviving officer was a lieutenant, a man with a broken arm and a gash on his forehead. They had him in a relatively clear spot, away from the worst of the carnage. He tried to stand tall when Noella and Volsei approached, but his eyes kept darting to Volsei, to the knife at his belt.
"Name and unit," Noella said, her tone that of a scholar inquiring about a specimen.
"Lieutenant Gorven. Third Legion, Stonecross Garrison."
"Your mission objective, beyond the punitive reduction of Eden."
Gorven set his jaw. "I am not required to divulge—"
Volsei took a single, silent step forward. He didn't draw his knife. He just looked at the man.
Gorven's bravado cracked. "The... the annihilation of Eden's resistance. The capture of the anomalous asset." He flicked a glance at Volsei. "And the secure acquisition of Princess Noella for... for study and political leverage."
Noella didn't react. "Study?"
"The Crown's savants believed your... unconventional mind and your association with the asset warranted examination."
A cold spike drove through Noella's gut. She had been a variable in their equation too. A specimen. It only hardened her resolve.
"And after Eden? What is Tombsrose's strategic priority for the eastern region?"
Gorven hesitated. Volsei shifted his weight.
"Th-the subjugation of Silverveil," the lieutenant blurted. "Within the year. Their navy is a nuisance. The plan was to crush Eden as a demonstration, then move on Silverveil with the liberated forces, using a pretext of maritime violations. Highcrag is to be isolated through a treaty with the mountain clans. Greensong will be bought or starved."
A broader plan. Eden was just the first domino. Noella absorbed the information. It made tactical sense. It also meant their victory had just disrupted a much larger timetable.
"You will be taken to Eden. You will be treated for your wounds. You will write down everything you know about legion deployments, supply lines, and the Inquisition's methods. If your information proves valuable, you may live to see your home again. If you lie, or withhold, you will be handed to him." She gestured to Volsei. "And he is very bored."
Gorven paled further, nodding frantically.
As he was led away, Noella turned to Volsei. "We haven't just won a battle. We've thrown a wrench into a continental machine. They will recalibrate. They will come back, not with a punitive force, but with a war machine."
"Let them," Volsei said, but his voice lacked its usual flat certainty. The fatigue was there.
"Not today," Noella said. "Today, we go home."
\\-\\\--
The return to Castle Eden was a surreal procession.
They came down from the Blackwood, the volunteers carrying the wounded Rylan on a stretcher, leading the bedraggled line of prisoners. Noella and Volsei walked at the head, side by side.
Word traveled faster than they did.
By the time they reached the outer farms, people were lining the muddy track. They were silent at first, staring at the bloodstained company, the prisoners in Tombsrose grey. Then an old woman fell to her knees, weeping. A man hurled a rotten turnip at a prisoner, spitting.
Then a cheer went up. Tentative at first, then swelling into a roar.
"PRINCESS NOELLA! THE WHISPERING BLADE!"
They were hailed as liberators, as saviors.
Noella acknowledged them with a slight, regal nod, her face still composed. Inside, she dissected the reaction. Emotional output: gratitude mixed with released fear. Societal cohesion will increase in the short term. Expectation levels have now been elevated exponentially. Future failures will be judged harshly.
Volsei walked beside her, ignoring the cheers, his eyes scanning the crowd, the rooftops, the tree lines. Even tired, he was on guard. The weight of their gaze was a different kind of pressure.
At the castle gates, King Alistair waited. He looked at his daughter, at the blood on her gown, at the dead-eyed prisoners, at the man beside her who had cut an army in half. He saw the mantle of power had already shifted. It hung on her shoulders, and she wore it without seeming to notice its weight.
He stepped forward, and instead of embracing her, he bowed. A deep, formal bow of a king to his sovereign.
The courtyard fell silent.
"Noella," he said, his voice thick. "The kingdom is yours. Lead it."
Noella looked at her father, at the surrender in his eyes. She felt a pang—not of guilt, but of sorrow for the good man who had been broken by the world she was now going to reshape.
"I will, Father," she said, her voice carrying across the stones. "And I will make it strong."
She turned to the crowd, to her soldiers, to her people.
"Today, we bled. But today, we are no longer prey. Eden stands. Tomorrow, we build."
The roar that followed shook the very foundations of the castle.
In the echoing din, Noella caught Volsei's eye. He gave her that faint, almost imperceptible nod.
The first battle was over.
The real war was just beginning.