Chapter 11. The Breaking Hour

The great bells of Elysor tolled just once that night, their deep, sonorous note drifting through the tower corridors and settling into Lora’s bones like a familiar lullaby gone awry. Midnight, the old sentinel announced, and she jerked upright beneath her linen sheets, shard-like echoes of Rael’s voice still coiling through her veins. She pressed the blanket to her chest, her skin slick with nervous sweat, heart thrumming so fiercely she could almost feel it beating against the fabric. How she hated being startled awake—especially when her dreams had been so deliciously blank of shadows.

Then the heavy door eased open, without ceremony or the usual flutter of hushed attendants. No soft footfalls, no gauzy curtains whisking aside; instead, only Kai stepped into the room, filling the threshold in a simple black tunic that swallowed the candlelight. Gone was his pale armor—tonight he looked almost casual, if one’s idea of casual involved marching you at swordpoint. His eyes, how