CHALTER 20
The First Verse of Rebirth The fog was their savior. It clung to them, a damp, grey shroud as they fled the echoing alarms of the estate. They did not stop, did not speak. The only sounds were their ragged breaths and the frantic thud of their hearts. Elara led them not back toward the lighthouse—that was compromised now—but east, toward the island’s most desolate, rocky shore, a place of sea-stacks and treacherous tides where no one would think to look. They finally collapsed in a hollow formed by two great slabs of granite, hidden from the land and the sea. The adrenaline ebbed, leaving them shaking and hollow. Kaelen hunched over, hands on his knees, vomiting from sheer terror and exertion. Elara leaned against the cold stone, her knuckles bloody from the confrontation, her body tremb
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