The air between them felt changed. Gone was the cold, distant silence of the hidden chamber and the heaviness of all those unanswered questions. Now it was tight and sharp and close—a kind of awareness that pressed up against Nyra until she wasn’t sure if the knot in her chest was anger, or confusion, or something much more dangerous she didn’t want to name.
Kael was close. Way too close. Not by accident. Not because of the size of the room. Close, as if the rest of the world—portraits, secret passages, the entire kingdom—had faded away.
She could feel his breath: warm, steady, far too controlled. And that small, quiet thing—just his breath—set her more on edge than the entire argument that brought them here.
Her heart hammered in her chest now. Nothing steady about it. Nothing calm. It
