The red haze of Arzhen's own rage began to recede. In their absence, a different sense sharpened. His nostrils flared.
The air in the chamber was heavy with the scent of their distress. Elara's cloying, fear-soured perfume, the acrid tang of his own sweat and fury, the clean, impersonal smell of the pine logs crackling in the hearth.
But beneath it all… threaded through the layers of present turmoil…
Faint.
So delicate it was almost a memory, not an aroma. A whisper against his senses where a shout had just been.
Nostalgic.
It tugged at a part of him that was not the furious heir, the betrayed son, or the failed assassin. It hooked into a deeper, older stratum of his being. A layer of instinct and possession he had convinced himself was buried, resolved, owned.
Familiar.
His blood seemed to still in his veins. His breath caught, suspended in his chest.
A scent—
