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By the next dawn, the citadel felt like a body holding its breath. The rhythm of repairs continued—chisels ringing, mortar slapped wet against stone, buckets clattering up and down ladders—but it carried a brittle urgency, as though everyone was trying to finish their tasks before nightfall erased the courage from their hands. Emil rose with the other squires, but his limbs felt heavier than ever. His dreams had not been dreams at all: the whisper had spoken to him even in sleep, shaping his thoughts until he could no longer tell where his mind ended and its voice began. *They patch the wall, but they cannot seal the wound. Flesh remembers. Stone remembers. You feel it, don’t you?* He dressed in silence, moving among the other boys who muttered quietly over stale bread and watered ale.
- Writer
