The corridor outside the king's quarters was still.
Too still.
Lindarion's boots moved across the polished stone without hesitation, cloak trailing like a drawn line of shadow behind him. Ashwing perched on his shoulder, silent, molten eyes watching every window and hallway turn.
They didn't speak.
Not yet.
The weight of the conversation lingered. The king had listened. The order had been signed. The twenty handpicked guards would be waiting by morning.
But morning was too far away.
Three days until the rune pulsed, but only if the enemy followed the old rhythm.
And Lindarion had stopped believing in old rhythms.
'They know I'm moving,' he thought. 'They've seen my pattern.'
He reached the edge of the inner keep and turned sharply down a servants' corridor. No one was there. Just dust in the corners and a breeze from a cracked window that smelled faintly of steel and winter.
Ashwing stirred.
"You're not sleeping tonight."
"I never planned to."
