Hezekiah knew something had changed the moment he woke before dawn and found the air too quiet, as if the forest itself had been instructed to listen elsewhere. No pressure lingered behind his eyes. No watchful presence weighed against his spine. Whatever had been observing them by the river had withdrawn completely.
That absence was not relief. It was clearance.
He sat up slowly, senses sharpening as memory aligned into something coder than instinct. The Order only escalated when uncertainty could no longer be tolerated. And uncertainty, once documented, was treated as defiance.
Across the clearing, Seraphine was already awake.
She knelt with deliberate precision, her posture composed. It was reverent in a way that had nothing to do with rest and everything to do with protocol. She di
