The summer had been long and generous, the garden yielding more than we had ever seen. The shelves of the library were full, the root cellars were packed, and the community on both sides of the river had grown into something that felt permanent. But the air had changed in the last few days. There was a heaviness to it, a stillness that made the birds stop singing and the leaves hang limp on the branches.
I stood at the riverbank, watching the sky. The clouds were building in the west, dark and towering. They were not the soft, rain-filled clouds of spring. These were different. These carried something harder, something that made my skin prickle with unease.
Cassian came to stand beside me. "You feel it too?"
"Yes. Something is coming."
"A storm. A big one."
I nodded. "We need to prepa
