The Sentinel's Vow
I leaned down, pressing my forehead against his, closing my eyes as the quiet peace of our new world wrapped around us like a shield—unbroken, unbound, and ours.
Klaus
The silence of La Clairière was a physical presence—dense, heavy, and vast enough to feel like an open expanse.
For fourteen years, my nights had been measured in operational increments: two-hour sleep cycles, the dull hum of satellite relays, the distant whine of diesel engines, or the sharp, high-frequency crackle of encrypted comms breaking the dark. Silence was usually a trap. It meant a line had gone dead, a sensor array was breached, or a target had shifted vector.