Kael’s POV
The night did not settle.
It never truly did within these walls, but tonight it resisted even the illusion of calm. The air felt stretched too thin, like something unseen pressed against it from the outside, waiting for the moment it could break through. Every instinct in me remained alert, sharpened to a point I could not dull, no matter how still I forced my body to be.
I stood alone in the war chamber, but the silence was not empty.
It watched.
Listened.
Waited.
The map before me lay open across the stone table, marked with territories, boundaries, old scars carved into land that had never truly healed. My fingers pressed lightly against the edges of the Silver faction’s region, tracing the lines they had begun to cross more frequently, more boldly, as though something
