The morning began wrong.
Not in any visible way sky clear, air mild, birds threading between low branches but Aurelia woke with a tightness beneath her ribs, a sensation she hadn’t felt in months.
Anticipation.
She sat up slowly, letting the feeling exist without naming it. The old reflex tried to surface: catalog possibilities, predict rupture, trace invisible fault lines through places she could no longer see.
She didn’t.
Kane stirred beside the low stone wall where they’d slept. “You’re up early.”
“I think today will be dramatic,” she said.
He squinted at the sky. “The weather looks boring.”
“Exactly,” she murmured.
They followed a narrow trail through open woodland. Light filtered in shifting patterns, leaves turning wind into a language too soft to translate. The path dipped
