Brielle’s POV
I didn’t sleep.
Neither did Jake.
After the last words were said, we stood in the war room until the fire died, until the shadows overtook the walls and our silence became a second skin. He didn’t touch me. I didn’t ask him to. The distance between us wasn’t anger anymore,it was survival.
But I still felt him watching.
And I think he knew I wasn’t breathing right.
By morning, I was trying. That was all I could manage: one breath at a time, armor on, spine straight, as if looking steady would keep everything else from unraveling.
I didn’t expect anything to arrive that morning.
No messengers. No scrolls. No warnings.
The morning patrol had just cleared the inner gates when a courier: young, unfamiliar, wearing the brown leathers of a neutral trade route,handed a small
