Chapter 24 The Ruff That Calls

• Kael stood on the high balcony, eyes fixed on the jagged break that had torn through the eastern horizon. The rift still bled a dull crimson glow, not fire, not light—but something that lived before both. The wind smelled strange now—like dust and memory. Like a name forgotten too long.
• Talia joined him in silence, her cloak wrapped tightly around her. She didn't speak. She knew this silence. The kind that came before the storm. The kind that demanded stillness before a world changed shape.
• “She’s coming back,” Kael said quietly, as though saying it aloud made it more real.