SCARLETT
The packhouse slept uneasily.
Hours after our return from the western peaks, I still felt the tremor of the crimson fragment reverberating in my veins. Each time I closed my eyes I heard its layered voice: One bond. One end. The words slid under my skin like a warning and a promise.
Kael’s heat curled around me where we lay on the council chamber’s wide fur-lined bench. His breath smelled faintly of smoke. Darius sat against the wall, eyes half-lidded, lightning flickering over his knuckles as if he were silently arguing with the storm itself. Lucien, ever the shadow, leaned near the open window where moonlight spilled across the floor, his gaze fixed on something far beyond the trees.
None of us had truly rested.
By the time the first light reached the mountains, the valley
