They arrived at dawn.
Not with banners raised or horns sounding, but with silence. The kind that pressed down on the city like a held breath.
Kael felt them before he saw them.
He stood on the balcony outside the east wing, watching the fog curl low over the streets, his senses stretched thin and aching. The seal over his core still burned where his oath had torn through something ancient. The hunger was quieter now—but not gone. Watching and waiting.
Then the air shifted. Cold, measured, and observed.
Kael’s jaw tightened.
“They’re here,” he murmured.
Behind him, Eron paused mid-step. “Who?”
Kael didn’t answer immediately. His gaze was fixed on the main road leading toward the estate. Figures moved through the fog—slow, deliberate, cloaked in white and ash-gray robes threaded with
