Chapter 176

Aisha POV Sometimes it still feels unreal when I pause long enough to think about it. Five years had passed since the battlefield quieted, since the Neutral Hospital no longer overflowed with the injured and dying. The silence now wasn’t heavy or mournful, it was alive with the hum of life, of laughter, of ordinary voices carrying on without fear. And in the middle of that rhythm, I stood not just as a healer anymore, but as a mother. I looked toward the lawn where Kaya and Noah rolled together with Cherry. Their shrieks of laughter rose like bright music, their small bodies tumbling across the grass with boundless energy. Cherry, always quick with a playful shove, darted around them, her braids whipping as she laughed with them. The three of them were a bundle of joy and mischief, a symbol of everything we had fought to protect. My gaze softened. There had been nights, long ago, when I wondered if peace was only a dream. I had doubted whether our people could ever live without the con