The storm didn’t break all at once.
It pressed in slowly, like a mouth forming around a scream. The wind stopped first. Then the birds vanished. The air thickened, turning sweet and sharp like rotting flowers. Even the ground felt wrong beneath their feet—too soft, like skin stretched thin over something waiting to wake.
No one spoke of what happened between Aelira and Astren the night before.
They didn’t need to.
It was written on their skin, in the bruises blooming down his throat, in the raw bite mark along her collarbone. It was in the way they moved—closer, sharper, hungrier. Like they’d crossed a line together, and there was no going back.
The others felt it too.
Cain eyed them with suspicion. Raze said nothing, but his hand stayed close to his dagger. Vess avoided Aelira’s gaz
