Jale arrived before dawn.
No escort announced her. No sentry stopped her. The gates had been guarded, the perimeter sealed, yet somehow she was already walking the central path when the first patrol rotated out.
Raya felt her before she saw her.
A thin vibration in the air. Like a string drawn too tight.
Derek and Jax were with her in the lower hall when the doors opened. Jale stepped inside without hesitation, pale robes brushing the stone, silver-threaded braids resting over one shoulder. Her blind eyes turned unerringly toward Raya.
“You have grown louder,” Jale said.
There was no greeting.
Raya didn’t move. “You felt it.”
“The North felt it,” Jale replied calmly. “The old places. The bone-fields. The rivers that remember first blood.”
Jax’s posture sharpened instantly. “Speak
