The Sovereign Hold did not sleep.
As dawn stretched thin light across the stone towers, the ancient fortress hummed with awareness, wards shifting and tightening like muscles bracing for impact. Aria felt it even as exhaustion weighed heavily on her limbs.
She sat at the edge of a long stone table in a smaller chamber adjoining the inner grounds, fingers wrapped around a cup of bitter tea she hadn't touched. Her body felt hollowed out, scraped raw by power she still didn't understand.
Damien stood near the open archway, speaking in low tones with Elias and two other sentinels. Their voices were tense, clipped.
"…not scouts," Elias was saying. "They didn't test the borders. They mapped them."
Damien's expression darkened. "How long?"
"Long enough to confirm her awakening," another sentinel replied. "They withdrew the moment the backlash peaked."
Aria's grip tightened on the cup.
They weren't here to kill her last night.
They were here to confirm she existed.
