Ember Crown of Promise
Elowen said, her voice cutting through the noise with practiced precision.
“I refuse false hope,” Alina replied. “The Crown is not a charm. It does not exist to quiet fear or buy time.”
She turned slowly, meeting the eyes of those gathered. Faces she recognized. Faces she did not. Faces that carried hunger, exhaustion, and a desperate need for certainty.
“If I wear it before I understand what it requires of me and of us,” she continued, “it will fall silent again. And next time, it may never wake.”
The silence that followed was thin and brittle, stretched tight over disbelief.
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