The keep settled into its nighttime noises—muted footsteps in the halls, the occasional bark of laughter from the guards’ room, the distant creak of timbers shifting as the stone cooled. Somewhere, a pup yipped in its sleep, shushed by a murmured voice.Rin stood in her doorway, hand on the latch, listening to it all.Then she crossed the corridor and knocked once on Kael’s door.There was a brief scuff of movement inside, and then the latch lifted. Kael opened the door wearing a loose shirt and trousers, hair unbound, the hard lines of the day’s armor gone from his shoulders.For a heartbeat, they just looked at each other.“Come in,” he said.His room had the bare, practical feel of a temporary space: travel pack half‑open on the chair, cloak laid out on the foot of the bed, boots by the wall. The only things that made it his were small—his knife on the bedside table, blade cleaned and oiled; a folded scrap of leather Rin recognized as the fidget piece he worried between his fingers
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