~ALARIC'S POV
Lucian walked half a step behind me, close enough that I could feel the faint shift of air that followed his movements.
My hand skimmed lightly across the wall as we approached Zephyrus' chamber, not because I needed direction, but because I preferred knowing the exact distance between myself and the world around me.
Stone carried memory in ways sight never could.
I felt the subtle vibrations that told me how thick the walls were, how many people had passed through the corridor before us, how recently.
Then a Smokey scent reached me.
Not the clean burn of palace incense or the sweet curl of ritual herbs, but something that lingered in the area, faint but stubborn, carrying the bitter trace of human tobacco.
Beneath it lay another smell, older and far more familiar, one I had not encountered in years yet recognized with such immediate certainty that my steps slowed without conscious thought.
