"Are you sure we aren't close to the barrier?" I asked. My voice sounded thin, swallowed instantly by the vast, unforgiving expanse of the mountain. I wasn't just cold; I felt off. My senses were calibrated for the library, for the scent of old paper and dust, not for the aggressive, sterile bite of thin air. If we weren't near the perimeter, why did the atmosphere taste so sharply of something I shouldn't be smelling? Metallic spice. Burnt coffee. The scent of a ghost.
Seth didn't look up. He sat perched on a granite outcropping, his quill moving with a rhythmic, disciplined scratch that felt like a mockery of my own internal chaos. He was logging the climb—as precise and clinical as always.
"Yes, your highness," he murmured, his tone layered with that familiar, maddeningly soft warmth.
