Selene’s POV
Morning light pooled against the stone floor like water.
I’d been sitting beside the window for hours before I realized the sun had risen. The fortress breathed around me—doors opening, boots moving through snow—but no one had knocked at my door.
When I caught my reflection in the frost-blurred glass, I almost didn’t know her: the woman who carried a secret large enough to bend the air.
Outside, voices drifted up from the courtyard. The soldiers were arguing about patrol routes, but underneath their words was a different sound: my name, spoken low, uncertain.
It had started already—the way fear spreads when no one understands it.
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I wrapped a shawl around my shoulders and went to the council chamber. The door guards exchanged looks when I approached, the way people d
