Chapter 53. The Departure

Long before the horizon even hinted at color, two horses stood in silent vigil beneath a sky still heavy with night. They were the sort of creatures bred for endless miles—tall, dark-maned, their muscles already warmed beneath smooth, dusky hides—and each bore a saddle that seemed to have been waiting for this very moment all along.

No grooms hovered at their flanks; no herald trumpeted their departure. Instead, the only motion came in the horses’ slow, steady breathing, and in the curling tendrils of mist that rose like pale ghosts from the forest floor below, lending the courtyard an otherworldly hush.

Lora entered that quiet space alone, her footsteps softened by dew-wet stone. She carried nothing in her hands—no leather satchel slung across her shoulder, no steel blade at her hip, no heavy cloak to gather around her shoulders.

Everything she needed already lay within: the faint silver-and-gold spirals etched into her forearms, the starched calm of her posture