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She wakes up with the certainty that she has died. That the blade was like any other, that she was like every soldier, and that, when the flames burst to life amidst mud and wood and men, she had not been spared. It had taken her as it had taken them.
In the dark of her tent, she breathes deep. It rained not so long ago, and Riven can smell the wet grass outside as leaves drink their share before the water seeps into the soil. She smells something else, too. An old scent that fills her lungs and tries to choke her out. It's blood, and sweat, and incense. It's the smell of a fierce people, the smell of the First Lands.
Riven is in a place that loves her not beside a woman who loves her little. A woman who finds something similar to contempt inside her and decides that it is enough.
This is what I deserve, Riven tells herself when the hollow in her chest grows deeper, while happiness turns scarcer. This is what redemption looks like.