Athax had not slept.
It endured.
The palace no longer moved with ceremony but with purpose. Guards shifted with sharper awareness, hands closer to steel. Messengers passed through corridors without pause, carrying fragments of information that had yet to settle into anything whole.
Aya stood at the edge of the courtyard, the early light barely touching the stone. The quiet did nothing to ease the tension beneath her skin. It had not left her—not since the hall, not since the blood.
Behind her, Killan spoke with Vignir and Harlan, their voices low, controlled. Nolle lingered nearby, listening with that same unsettling stillness that meant he was already thinking three steps ahead.
The gates opened.
This time, Aya turned.
The riders did not slow as they entered. Dust clung to armor, to cloaks, to horses pushed harder than they should have been. At the front—
Asta.
