Naomi’s POV
Morning came slow.
Not with sunlight, but with a strange kind of brightness that wasn’t warm. A pale, washed-out sky greeted us as we stepped outside, the clouds still thick and heavy. The air smelled like smoke and iron. The kind of scent that clings to your skin, your clothes, your thoughts.
The square was already filling.
People stood in clumps, clutching their coffee cups, children’s hands, and nervous hope. Others perched on benches or stood along balconies, watching. The tension wasn’t loud. It was breath-held, spine-straight, pulse-tight.
This wasn’t a rally.
This was a reckoning.
I stood near the steps of the old town hall, the scroll in my hand again. My fingers were numb, not from cold, but from the weight of everything it meant. Of everything that was about to
