The sky over the city burned gold and gray by the time dawn broke. A deceptive calm hung over the skyline as if the world had taken a long breath before the plunge. Inside the penthouse, the air was sharp with silence. Elowen sat alone on the balcony, knees drawn to her chest, her breath ghosting in the chilled morning air. Her robe fluttered gently in the breeze, the silk clinging to her skin, but she didn’t feel the cold. Not really.
She felt everything else.
Rowan’s words from the night before clawed at her memory. “You’re just the woman who stayed too long.”
And maybe she had. Maybe she’d let herself be chained to a man who studied weakness like a scholar and wore trust like a costume.
But something in her had changed now—fractured cleanly and remade in silence. She wasn’t just gri
