~ Aria ~
The silence from the balcony clings to me long after Kael is gone. His words echo like iron struck on stone, reverberating in my chest, impossible to ignore. I lie awake staring at the beams above, listening to the heartbeat of the castle—boots shifting on stone, wolves moving in the dark, distant howls shredding the night. My wolf paces too, restless, unsettled.
Sleep doesn’t last. Dawn drags me up before the sun clears the trees, the air sharp with pine and damp stone. I don’t expect him so soon, but when I open my door, Kael is already there, standing in the corridor with his hands clasped behind his back. He looks as if the night never touched him.
“Walk with me,” he says. Not quite an order, but close enough that I move.
He leads me through narrow halls that twist like ve
