FESTIVAL MORNING

Morning came, and it's the festival day.

A pale haze clung to the palace windows as if even the sun was reluctant to stir, brushing only the edges of the world with light. The air was cool, gentle with a hush that only mornings before sacred things knew how to hold. The Festival of the Double Moons would not begin until nightfall, but the palace had already started to feel different, a reverent rhythm settling into the walls and floors, into the scent of warmed milk and moon herbs steeping in a distant kitchen.

Kael blinked awake slowly, his lashes heavy with sleep. The bed was warm beneath him, but empty beside him. Alaric had already risen, likely called early by court duties, the sort that wore heavy sashes and grimmer expressions. Kael didn’t mind. Alaric’s absence left behind something sweet: the memory of being kissed on the forehead, of being touched like something rare, precious, and he knows that’s what he is to Alaric.

He's still yawning and stretching when he heard a knock