The eastern horizon of Iron Hearth was still painted in a melancholic gray-blue. The sun had yet to fully rise, but the signature biting chill of the North was already piercing straight to the marrow.
In the quiet front courtyard of the Sudrath Castle, human breath instantly plumed into thin white vapor. Haaah...
Caelus stood near the gates. The young man wore a thick, dark-blue travel cloak, the silver sun emblem of the Aethelgard royal family pinned neatly to his chest. Beside him, Ramirez—his loyal, aging bodyguard—stood calmly holding the reins of two horses.
There was no grand escort of elite Sol-Regis knights to retrieve him. Just the two of them.
A few steps away from Caelus stood Raveena.
The woman's hair was left unbound, fluttering messily in the dawn wind. Her blue eyes were swollen and red. The tips of her fingers gripped the fabric of her nightgown so tightly her knuckles turned white.
