Lilith
The moment the doors of the Vance Palace close behind us, my body finally remembers how to breathe.
Not the shallow, controlled breaths I'd been forcing all night. Not the measured inhales meant to keep my spine straight and my face composed. Real air. Deep and steady, filling my lungs until the tight coil under my ribs loosens for the first time since stepping onto that marble floor.
Kael's car hums beneath us as it pulls away, the palace lights shrinking in the distance like a bad dream retreating into shadow.
I don't speak. Neither does Kael.
But the silence is different now. It's heavy with aftermath, the kind that settles after surviving something dangerous. My shoulders sag as the adrenaline bleeds out of me, leaving behind exhaustion so sudden it makes my han
