~Kaida Orion POV~
I didn't sleep that night after leaving the temple, we returned to the western pavilion in the Crownstone estate. The guards had doubled, even the inner garden felt tense, as though the vines on the walls had begun listening to every breath I took.
I set the chest on the cedar table in my private chamber and sat in front of it with Lunara curled against my side. Biat placed tea beside me, but I didn't drink it, my eyes remained fixed on the faint red and blue glow that pulsed from the carved edges of the chest.
That whisper… Sister cannot stand alone. It hadn't come from within me, nor had it come from anyone in the temple. I had felt it, and it slid into the air like a memory echo, but it carried power. Power I didn't recognize, power that felt... old.
And Lunara...she had smiled right after, as if she'd understood it.
I turned to her. "Lunara, do you remember what you heard in the temple?"
