The soft rustle of leaves was the only sound that accompanied Evelyn as she walked through the wooded path behind the training grounds. Her boots crunched lightly against the dirt trail, her breath steady, her mind... anything but.
The council meeting had been long, draining, and filled with thinly veiled power plays. Some still questioned her role, others whispered about her return as if she were a ghost come back to stir the graves of memory. And then there was Damien—always Damien—sitting across from her with those brooding eyes, trying to read her like an old book he once burned but now regretted losing.
She didn’t speak to him during the entire council. She didn’t need to. Her silence had become a language of its own—one Damien had no dictionary for.
She exhaled deeply, placing her
