Ayla's POV
The next morning felt heavier than it should have.
Like the air had thickened overnight, the world waking up with a bruise spreading just beneath its surface. I felt it before I even left my room—a pressure that had no clean source and no clean edges.
The packhouse was already awake when I walked in. Too many voices, too much movement, too many eyes that found me before I'd crossed the threshold and tracked me all the way to the table. Every step sent a ripple through the room. Every whisper dropped like water, radiating outward, circling back.
I kept my chin up. My skin prickled with a hundred silent questions crawling across it.
The triplets were already there.
Ryker looked up first, then Soren, then Kael. Three sets of eyes—each one a checkpoint, measuring and steadying
