Chapter 24. The Quiet Between Us

The next day unraveled with aching slowness.

Morning light filtered through the silk-draped windows. But Mira could find no comfort in it. The bed beside her was already empty when she stirred. The warmth of their midnight escape, their shared breath beneath moonlight, already felt like a distant dream.

Kaelen was gone—swallowed whole by the machine of power. The council had claimed him the moment he stirred, dragging him into a labyrinth of duties Mira could only imagine: elders squawking like crows, ancient wolves trading opinions like currency, decisions weighed with centuries of inertia.

She saw him only in fragments now. A fleeting glance across a corridor. The brief press of his fingers against hers as they passed one another like ghosts in a house neither of them controlled. Sometimes, if she reached for him through the bond, he answered—but only with a flicker of presence, a breath of apology, before slipping away again.

She told herself this was expe