The morning began in heavy silence.
Sunlight filtered gently through the glass wall, spilling across the floor of the living room, and yet the air felt heavier than usual. No music played in the house, no doors slammed, even the coffee maker hummed with a delay, as if the entire system could sense the tension slowly and insidiously seeping through every crack.
Dareth had been awake for hours. He sat in his study, the bluish glow of the monitor casting faint shadows across his face, which showed almost no emotion. His fingers moved across the keyboard, sending out commands, monitoring feedback from the observation runes, reviewing Leonardo's known movements. But something... felt off.
His thoughts drifted.
Not among the data.
But deeper.
Something stirred inside his body. Not pain, an
