Vireya hadn’t stopped pacing since the moment she stepped foot back inside the castle.
The blood from the shadowbound assassins had barely dried in the courtyard. Guards scrambled to clean up the wreckage—both bodies and magic—and the scent of ash still clung to her hair, even after her third attempt to wash it out.
She felt wired.
Like something inside her was still vibrating from the shift. From the violence. From the bond.
Ashira, for once, was silent.
But not in the distant, withdrawn way she had been before.
This silence was watchful.
Coiled.
Vireya didn’t trust it.
Kael sat in the war chamber, braced against the table, eyes locked on a map that had gone irrelevant the moment those assassins crossed his gates.
Iska was there too—half-covered in ink and dirt, hair in a messy
