Chapter 34 The Gathering Storm

• They returned to the city at dawn, the mountain winds still clinging to them like memory. Kael didn’t speak as the gates opened. The soldiers bowed, the guards straightened, but no one met his eyes. Something in him had shifted—too quiet, too controlled. Not fearsome, not yet, but watchful. Like a storm waiting to speak.
• Elira rode beside him, her cloak soaked with ash and wind. She glanced at him often but said nothing. She could feel the tether between them tightening. Whatever they had found in the Hollow Flame—it had bound them deeper.
• In the great hall, the council was already assembled. Steel-clad lords, veiled ladies, scholars, soldiers. All with opinions. All with expectations. Kael stood before them not as the cursed prince, not as the Flamebearer—but as a man who had seen the edge of something far older than any of them.