Chapter 28
Rayna
When Nyra said the word treason, something in my chest finally unclenched.
It wasn’t gone—fear, anger, the feeling that I’d wandered onto a chessboard where everyone else knew the rules—but it loosened enough that I could actually breathe all the way in.
No death sentence. No erasure. Not today.
The Council started talking over our heads again—containment, terms, wards, phrases that sounded bureaucratic and terrifying at the same time. I stopped really tracking the words. I just listened to the tone: less “kill them now,” more “how do we manage this mess without setting ourselves on fire.”
Miron’s shoulder brushed mine.
“You okay?” he asked under his breath.
I let out a humorless huff. “You ask me that a lot for someone who keeps dragging me into rooms full of peo
