Kaelthryn POV
The first warning doesn’t come as sound.
It comes as pressure—a subtle shift in the air that only those who’ve lived too long around war bother to notice. The kind of pressure that hums at the base of the skull, the kind that whispers someone is about to make a mistake.
I pause at the edge of the listening chamber, one hand resting lightly against the stone. The wards murmur beneath my palm, restless. Outside the kingdom’s outer ring, the night carries too much motion for a city pretending at calm.
Vaelor is late.
Not “caught up in a tavern rumor” late. Not “shadowing a court fool who won’t stop talking” late.
This is different.
I tilt my head, letting my senses stretch past walls and distance, filtering the city’s noise into layers—boots on stone, torch-crackle, the m
