Caelum woke before anything happened.
That was the part he would not be able to explain later, not properly, not in a way that made sense to the adults who would ask him about it. He did not wake because of a sound. He did not wake because of a feeling exactly, not the kind of feeling that had words attached to it yet. He just woke, all the way, instantly, the way he sometimes did, eyes open in the dark with his heart already going fast before his mind had caught up to why.
He lay still and listened.
The Citadel at night had its own sounds. He knew them all. The settling of old stone as it cooled. The far-off footsteps of the night watch, even and slow. The wind doing whatever the wind did against the outer walls. He had catalogued all of it months ago, the way he catalogued everything, until the sounds became background, until he could tell in half a second if something in the pattern was wrong.
Something in the pattern was wrong.
