Chapter 54
****Elara’s POV****
The war camp was quiet when she woke.
Not peaceful—never that—but quiet in the way exhaustion could silence even the loudest souls. The siege had ended in fire and ruin, and though victory had been claimed, the cost hung in the air like smoke.
Elara sat up, the rough wool blanket falling from her shoulders. Her body still ached from the days spent in the city—fighting, bleeding, dragging civilians out from the rubble that had once been their homes. She could still smell the burning flesh when she closed her eyes.
Kael’s face haunted her dreams.
That calm, cold expression as he stood amid the chaos, his sword dripping with blood. And those words—soft, like a whisper to her soul—“You’ll see the truth soon enough.”
She couldn’t stop hearing them.
The ph
