The drums started at dawn.
Not from inside the castle—but beyond the trees. Deep. Measured. Like the heartbeat of something massive waiting in the dark.
Vireya stood at the northern watchtower, wind lifting her hair as she stared down the ridgeline.
The shadows were thicker now. Wrong.
They moved even when the wind didn’t.
Kael stepped up beside her, fully armored, his black leathers etched with the sigils of his bloodline. His sword hung at his side, and Drekken surged just under the surface—furious, alert, ready.
“You feel it too,” he said quietly.
Vireya nodded.
“I don’t think it’s them,” she whispered. “I think it’s the land.”
Kael glanced at her.
She didn’t elaborate.
She didn’t need to.
Because something had shifted—not just in the air, but under it. In the bones of the k
