Chapter Twenty-Five
Trust did not arrive with relief.
It arrived with exhaustion.
Lyra felt it in the hours after the breach was sealed, after the wounded were tended, after the last runner collapsed onto a bench and the stronghold finally exhaled. The bond no longer screamed or surged. It rested—heavy, warm, present—like a weight that refused to be shrugged off.
She sat alone in the council chamber long after it emptied.
The maps were still spread across the stone table, markers shifted and scattered, the remnants of a night that could have ended everything. Her fingers traced the edge of the table absently, grounding herself in the cold solidity of it.
They had held.
But holding was not the same as believing it would last.
Footsteps echoed softly behind her.
She didn’t turn.
Ca
