The sun was setting behind the Riverlands hills, staining the smoke rising from Stone Hedge a deep blood-red. The air was thick with the stench of char and pitch, the screams from within the walls now no more than dying echoes. Leonella stood by her destrier amid the golden banners and the mud, her armor spattered with ash, watching the flames crawl higher across the battlements. Behind her, men laughed and shouted, dragging spoils from the burning keep; ahead, the drawbridge sagged half-melted into the moat.

She pulled off her helm, her hair damp with sweat, and glanced at the crimson glow on the horizon where Pinkmaiden had burned just days before. She inhaled the smell of the burning wood as she walked over to her tent along with some stuff she had taken from the castle.