Lyra's POV
Kael looked smaller than I remembered.
He stood in the center of the receiving hall, travel-worn and visibly uncertain, none of the confident, commanding presence I'd grown up watching him wear like a second skin. His eyes swept the grand hall around him — the towering ceilings, the silver banners, the guards stationed at careful intervals — before finally settling on me.
I'd expected the sight of him to hurt more than it did. Instead, I found myself studying him almost clinically, cataloging the ways weeks apart had changed us both. He looked older somehow, the confident set of his shoulders replaced by something more hesitant, more uncertain than the Alpha I'd known my entire life.
"Lyra." His voice cracked slightly on my name. "You look— you look different."
"A lot has h
