Chapter 15. Lessons in Silence

The old schoolroom hadn’t felt life in years. A thick layer of dust lay draped across every surface, settling in the corners of the wooden beams like prayers abandoned mid-utterance. The once-smooth slate boards on the walls bore the jagged scars of countless chalky figures—letters and diagrams frantically scrubbed away by forgotten fingers. Pale dawn light filtered through the narrow, high-set windows; it was too weak to chase away the damp chill, but strong enough to stretch crooked shadows of desks and chairs across the flagstone floor. There was no hearth here to crackle warmth into the gloom—only the low, steady creak of settling timbers and the faint whisper of boots on worn planks, as though the room itself were weighing every step before it spoke.

Kael stood pressed to the far wall, shoulders squared, posture taut—not from anger, but from a careful, controlled readiness. His eyes tracked the door’s iron-hinged threshold as it swung inward, and he spoke nothing, letting