The city always grew quieter just before violence; a strange, breath-held stillness that settled across the rooftops like dust waiting to be stirred.Kaelen felt it. The weight of it. Like the world was warning him: This is where the thread unravels.He moved fast through Aru’Shenu’s back alleys, Saltana at his side, her pale dress kicking up ash and dirt with every hurried step. The wedding bell had already sounded — the wrong kind. Not celebration. Not a union. A warning.They were late. Or maybe… just in time for trouble.Saltana didn’t ask questions. She ran without stumbling, her eyes locked ahead, her hand still gripping his like she was afraid he’d vanish if she let go.Then came the first sound; a footstep behind them. Just one. Precise. Calculated.Kaelen stopped cold. “Run,” he said.Saltana blinked. “What—”“Run. Now.”She turned without another word and darted into the nearest alley. Kaelen followed her, just long enough to catch a glimpse of a figure dropping from a rooft

Zaria had learned to listen differently since the night everything was taken.The bells that rang across Aru’Shenu weren’t just noise anymore. They were languages. Warning. Memory. A different kind of heartbeat; one that belonged to the city and all its ghosts.And tonight, they rang with seven short strikes, all fast and sharp.She froze.Not because she was afraid. Not entirely. But because that rhythm meant one thing.Run. Or fight.Zaria stood at the edge of the doorway, fingers pressed lightly to the frame, her ears tuned not just to sound but to silence; the kind of silence that always came right before fire.The wind tugged at the loose fabric of her blouse. She was already sweating, already tense. But the feeling in her chest wasn’t fear. It was anticipation. A storm rising through her bones.She placed one hand over her stomach.Four weeks. Not showing yet. But her body knew. Her breath caught differently now. Her hunger came in waves like the tide. And her dreams… they had s

Zaria knew she should have left days ago.She stood in the tiny back room of the spice trader’s house; a space that smelled like saffron, sweat, and old sorrow — watching the sky turn the color of bruised peaches. Sunset in Aru’Shenu always came too quickly. Like the city didn’t want to give you time to prepare for the dark.She tightened the strap on her pack as Amara instructed. It held little — just dried bread, a flask of clean water, a blade hidden in cloth, and two things that weren’t hers: a sealed letter from her mother’s hidden archive and a half-burned sigil once worn by the Flameborn generals.She didn’t know what either meant. But they felt important. That was enough.Amara had told her to move quickly. The contact who’d arranged her new identity was already in hiding. Soldiers were sniffing along the edges of the Dust Quarter like wolves catching scent of a wounded deer.Zaria hadn’t moved. Not yet.Because she was waiting.For Kaelen. For a sign. For anything to tell her

The air in Chief Tenem-Ra’s private garden was heavy with the perfume of night jasmine and lies. Crickets sang lazily. The torchlight flickered golden against marble arches, pretending nothing outside these walls could touch him.He had just reclined with his second goblet of wine when the first guard went down.No cry. What happened was a quiet shift of weight, a flicker of movement in the shadowed trees — and then nothing.The second dropped seconds later, gurgling softly into the ornamental pond.Tenem-Ra sat up, frowning. “Khesan?”No answer.His pulse quickened, lips parting.Before he could stand, a low hiss of steel hummed behind him — and cold metal pressed gently beneath his chin.“Don’t scream,” said a voice — quiet, feminine, edged like glass. “We both know no one will come in time.”Tenem-Ra stiffened. His eyes darted across the garden. One by one, the rest of his guards were gone — sprawled like discarded dolls in the shadows.The figure stepped in front of him. She wore

They rode hard until the city fell away behind them, until the stars swallowed the sky and only desert wind howled through the canyons.Saltana slipped in and out of consciousness, her arm swollen and ribs cracked. Every bump in the path wrung a moan from her lips, but she didn’t complain. She just clung to Kaelen’s belt with the kind of quiet strength that earned respect without asking for it.Kaelen reined the horse to a stop beneath the ruins of a collapsed watchtower. A half-forgotten waystation from a war no one spoke of anymore.Amara was already dismounting. “Here. This will do.”Kaelen slid from the saddle and caught Saltana gently in his arms. She gritted her teeth, refusing to cry out.Amara tossed him a flask. “Boil this with water. Apply it to her side. It'll numb the worst of it.”Kaelen laid Saltana down inside the stone remnants of a sleeping chamber. He worked silently, trying not to show how his hands trembled — not with fear, but with guilt.“I should’ve seen the tra