The wards opened at first light.
Kaelen felt it happen from inside the Elder's cavern, a faint pressure releasing somewhere down the mountain, like a held breath had been let go . She didn't move from where she stood beside the training circle. She had chosen this ground deliberately. Scorched pillars. Cracked stone. Every mark in this room was something she had survived on her own.
Julian walked into the torchlight, and the fire inside her went quiet.
She hated that most of all. Not the way her heart kicked against her ribs, not the ache that bloomed under her collarbone. The quiet. Weeks of fighting the fire every waking hour, and it settled the moment he stepped into the room, like a dog lying down at its master's feet.
He was thinner. The sharp lines of his face had gone sharper, a
