The Hollow held its breath in reverent silence.
Sera slept beneath a veil of golden light. Myrra had woven protective runes into her bedchamber’s walls, while Elira stood at the door like a blade in waiting. No one dared enter but Kaelin.
She sat beside the girl every morning, just before the sun rose—when dreams were still tangled in memory and truth felt tender.
Sera hadn’t spoken since the collapse of the Cathedral of Shards.
But she breathed.
And Kaelin knew that was enough.
---
Outside, the world was changing.
Ashmark's signal fires now dotted the horizon from coast to coast. The Dominion’s march had slowed. Whole Flameborn enclaves had fallen silent, their followers lost in confusion—divided between the echoes of old belief and the new stories being sung in every tongue.
And
