Chapter 35
Elara’s POV
The war drums were silent, but their echoes throbbed in my veins.
The news of Kael’s capture of the port had shaken every corridor of the palace, and though no messenger had spoken the word aloud, I could feel it carved into the air: war.
For the first time since declaring myself, I was not hiding, not shrinking in someone else’s shadow. No—now the storm carried my name as much as Lucien’s. The people looked to me with the same hunger for protection, the same desperate eyes that once turned only to their king.
I rose before dawn, long before the bells tolled the first hour, and lit the lamp in my study. Scrolls, maps, and histories covered the long oak table. I ran my fingers over a parchment depicting the eastern campaigns of my ancestor—Queen Alyssara, the war
