CHAPTER 42: THE EDGE OF WAR
Dawn came quietly over Ivanova.
Too quietly.
The first light of morning crept across the stone walls of the palace, pale and thin, as though even the sun hesitated to rise fully upon what the day would bring.
The sky held a dull gray hue, neither night nor day, caught in an uneasy in-between.
There were no birds.
No distant songs to greet the morning.
Only the low, constant hum of movement.
Below the palace, the kingdom was already awake.
Not in the way it once had been—with merchants calling out, children laughing, life spilling into the streets—but with something heavier. Something disciplined.
Something grim.
Soldiers.
They moved in lines, boots striking against the ground in steady rhythm.
Armor clinked. Metal scraped against metal as blades were sharpened, adjusted, tested.
War had not begun.
But it had already arrived.
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The training grounds were filled.
