Elara POV
You would think that the warmth in the hall felt like relief after I had been out in the cold forest. It did, but it didn’t settle the way it was meant to. It just clung around me in an unfamiliar way like I had stepped into something that looked like safety but no longer felt like it.
Kael didn’t slow as he carried me through the main corridor, his stride steady and purposeful, the tension in his body still sharp even though we were inside our own walls now, and I could feel it through the way his arm tightened slightly around me every time someone stepped too close, like he didn’t trust anything that wasn’t directly under his control.
People moved out of the way as we passed.
Some lowered their heads.
Some stared.
All of them noticed.
The blood on my dress.
The
