The silence didn’t lift after Kellen disappeared.
It spread.
Lyra felt it before anyone spoke about it. The compound moved the next morning differently. Not slower. Not faster. Just… cautiously. Like a place that had learned something bad could happen without warning and was still deciding how to react.
That was new.
Ronan’s system had always thrived on certainty. On predictability. On the quiet understanding that if you followed the channels, things worked. Those favors would be returned. Those permissions, once earned, stayed earned.
Kellen’s absence cracked that illusion.
Lyra walked through the lower yard at first light, boots echoing too clearly against the stone. Wolves greeted her out of habit, then caught themselves, unsure whether respect was still safe.
She let the uncerta
