The small study was a room of heavy oak and old shadows, a place where the air always seemed to smell of beeswax and the slow decay of parchment.
It was a space designed for the containment of secrets, and as Soren shut the door, the click of the latch felt like the final seal on a pact.
He didn't wait for Aldwin to sit. He stood by the cold hearth, his hands gripped behind his back, and began to lay out the internal geography of the woman he loved.
"I have been watching the seal for months," Soren began, his voice low and clinical, though the tightness in his jaw betrayed him. "I can feel its rhythm when I reach for it with my magic. It isn't a static thing. It's a living wound."
He described the mechanics of the deterioration with the precision of a master tactician reporting on a crumbling fortress. The crack he had noticed before his departure was no longer a hairline fracture; it had become a jagged chasm.
