The scent of blood still clung to the castle’s stone corridors.
It wasn’t fresh—but it wasn’t old, either. It had settled into that in-between stillness, where the memory of violence still hung in the air like breath on glass. It clung to the arches. To the stairwells. To the marrow of the walls. And to Rose’s skin.
She stood in the courtyard, moonlight brushing across her cheekbones like cold silk. Her wings barely moved at her back, one trailing embers, the other draped in the hush of shadow. The sword—that sword—rested across her spine like a secret too heavy to name. Behind her, Marcus and Alex kept close, both of them silent, but not still. Their eyes scanned the darkness between the columns, the corners where light died too easily. Their hands hovered near their weapons, though the
