No one moved toward the steps.
The opening had split the road cleanly, exposing a narrow descent cut into dark stone. Warm air rose from below in slow breaths, carrying the scent of iron and the blue wildflowers Zinnia remembered from childhood. Those flowers had never grown wild beyond Vale lands. Her mother had cultivated them along the lower walls of the keep, drying the petals for sleeping draughts and fever remedies.
Their scent had no place beneath frozen ground.
Ronan remained on one knee at the boundary, the Sovereign Mark burning beneath his shirt. The black veins along his throat had begun to fade, but his attention stayed fixed on the passage.
Zinnia felt the thing inside the mark listening.
Not speaking.
Waiting.
Cassian was the first to break the silence. “We are not ta
