UNDER THE OPEN SKY
The night did not feel different.
That was the first mistake.
Elara would think about that later — how nothing in the air warned her. No sudden chill. No unnatural silence. The forest breathed as it always did. Crickets hummed low in the undergrowth. A thin crescent moon hovered between drifting clouds.
Ordinary.
Almost peaceful.
The council meeting had stretched longer than expected. Border disputes. Trade routes. A minor altercation between two warriors that required Kael’s judgment. Elara had excused herself early, the weight of the chamber pressing faintly against her ribs.
“I’ll meet you at the ridge,” Kael had said when she rose. “Give me twenty minutes.”
She had nodded.
Twenty minutes was nothing.
—
The lower clearing lay quiet when she arrived. The med
