Rafe POV
Before she began, the link in my head buzzed - a ripple from Calder, quiet and taut. He’d called in the lead warriors to hear this plan straight from her mouth. In minutes the room filled with the low-footed presence of Toren and Sera, Ilya and two others I’d trusted through more scrapes than I could count. They didn’t need to be spoken to; the link had done the work. They slipped into place like shadows at the edges of the firelight, faces set, hands restless on hilts.
She moved like a woman who had rehearsed this in the dark a thousand times. Every step Evelynn took toward the map felt like a small thunderclap; the room leaned in. I’d seen her fight. I’d seen her hold herself through worse than this. But watching her lay out another man’s life like this - routes, rotations, we
