LUCIENThe council chamber was warm, too warm for the hour, heavy with the smell of parchment, ink, and restrained tempers.Maps lay spread across the obsidian table before me, marked with routes and counters that traced the borders of Valtherion like veins beneath skin.My generals argued quietly at the far end, their voices measured, careful, as though any rise in volume might fracture the fragile calm we had managed to restore after the poisoning.I should have been listening more closely. I usually did… Instead, my attention slipped— not all at once, but in the way a blade slowly turns in the hand, cutting only after you’ve already tightened your grip.The sensation began in my chest, a subtle pressure that made me inhale more deeply than necessary, as though the air had thickened without warning.For a brief moment, I thought it was fatigue, the lingering aftereffect of poison still clawing at my nerves, but the thought did not settle.Something faint stirred within my heart, affe
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