Three months had passed. I was strong again. My body had healed, and I was ready to return to battle.
But as I sat at my desk, writing my request to King Cyrus, I hesitated.
I had spent my entire life chasing war, but now, for the first time, I had built something instead of tearing something down.
Could I truly leave it behind?
I shook off the thought and finished the letter. I was a warrior. That was all I had ever been.
And yet, as I sealed the parchment, I glanced out the window at the fields I had nurtured, the people who now relied on me, the land that had become something more than exile.
Leaving this place would not be as easy as I had once thought.