The moment they said they would end me, something inside me remembered the exact moment they had tried before.
The reaction was not fear, and it was not instinct, because the instant those words settled into the fractured space around us, something deeper surfaced within me, something that did not recognize this as a new threat, but as a continuation of something unfinished.
The presences surrounding us did not rush forward, and they did not attack immediately, because whatever they were, they moved with discipline, with precision, with the quiet certainty of something that had carried out this task before and intended to complete it this time.
Kael stepped closer without hesitation, his presence aligning with mine, not in dominance and not in control, but in readiness that did not requ
