A blade flashes.
It doesn’t belong with the music or the swirl of dancers. It doesn't fit inside the elegance or the dazzling choreography everyone’s admired all evening. No, it's something ancient slipping through the seams, a piece of pure violence cutting through all that grace—like the world itself got yanked back to its old, brutal roots in a single heartbeat.
The flash barely catches the eye. Off to the side, not where anyone’s watching. Not center stage. Danger arrives on the edges, in the blink you need to process what’s happening—sometimes, that tiny delay is all it takes to end everything.
Nyra senses it before she even understands it. Instinct seizes her first. Not thought. Not conscious realization. Her whole body tenses, every sense spiking with alarm, her limbs bracing to
