Rynsúlfr crouched low among the glowing herbs, her wings folded tight against her back. The soft teal light washed over her hands as she watched the valley below. She had come to this hidden garden to witness her calling. A fighter with wings she had not yet earned, she needed only a righteous cause to claim them. The banners she had almost followed waved beneath a great wooden cross planted at the field's edge. Its carvings caught the sun. She had been ready to kneel before it. She had been ready to bleed for it. Then the screams began. Her chosen side did not fight soldiers. They cut down the kneeling. They burned the wounded. The carved cross watched it all without flinching, and Rynsúlfr's breath caught hard in her throat. When the smoke cleared, the victors stacked their broken blades into a grim seat at the center of the killing ground. A throne built from swords, red cloth draped across its base. Their commander climbed it and laughed. Beside Rynsúlfr in the herbs, a teal and purple wolf bared its teeth and growled low. Rynsúlfr unpinned the small wooden token shaped like that cross from her collar. She let it fall into the dirt. She would not carry their mark. She had judged, and she had been wrong, and now she would live with it — and find a truer war.