Chapter 52. The Alpha’s Silence

The final morning of the rites arrived as quietly as a leaf drifting to earth, without drum or trumpet, without a single herald to cry the hour. No horn sounded. No bells tinkled atop distant towers. Even the twin moons—still tilted in their daylight orbits, as if something colossal had cracked them off balance above the battlefield—hung low and flat, two pale discs dulled by thin clouds, like sleep-fogged lanterns reluctant to burn brightly in the dawn. The sky itself seemed to yawn, pale and wide, as though the world were still stretching after a long, endless struggle.

Lora stood alone on the central terrace of the high wall, the cool grain of ancient stone pressing against her bare ankles through the simple grey linen of her wrap. A soft breeze curled around her shoulders, lifting stray strands of hair and carrying the faint tang of river water from the fields below. She glanced down at her feet, then up again, and watched the western plain stretching away in gentle, rippl