Selene’s POV
Doubt has a sound.
A faint vibration in the walls, a shift in how footsteps fall outside your door.
The fortress had carried that sound all morning — sharp, thin, like a wire pulled too tight.
Kael was doubting me.
Not fully, not openly.
But doubt never arrives loudly. It creeps, subtle and patient, until it becomes a language people don’t realize they’re speaking.
I heard it now in the way the guards murmured when I passed.
In the way Jarek’s spine stiffened when he bowed.
In the way Eryndor’s eyes lingered on me — not in fear, but in warning.
And in the way Kael’s shadow appeared outside my door twice last night…
…but he never knocked.
He thought I didn’t notice.
I always notice.
---
The snow was relentless that morning, drifting across the courtyard in thick
