Nathan’s body looked wrong in stillness.
He had always moved with that quiet, unsettling grace that made everyone around him nervous. Even when he was furious, even when he was ripping enemies apart, there was a kind of control in him. A steadiness. Seeing him limp and silent on the courtyard stones felt like watching a mountain collapse.
I knelt beside him, my breath stuck somewhere between my ribs and my throat. His eyes were closed. His skin was too pale. His chest did not rise.
The world felt muffled. Far away. Like I was underwater.
Wolves rushed around him, shouting, arguing, panicking. Soldiers dragged bodies, helped the wounded, barked orders that no one listened to. Sparks still drifted down from the sky after the storm finally cleared. The courtyard was a graveyard of ash and
