Damien's POV
The past three weeks had stretched on with an eerie kind of quiet. Too quiet. After the rogue attack, there'd been no sign of Elias, no cryptic letters, no subtle threats lingering in the shadows. Most would call that a victory. I wasn't most people.
It was the kind of silence that made the hair on the back of your neck stand up, that gnawed at you in the dead of night when you were alone with your thoughts. The calm before the storm, as they say.
We'd stepped up patrols, fortified the borders, and made sure everyone was prepared for whatever might come next. I'd spent hours with Sebastian, going over strategies, double-checking the layout of our defenses, and reinforcing the weak points. I wasn't about to leave this to chance.
And then there was Mira.
She was
