Varder
The night air hit him the moment he cleared the door.
Cold. Sharp. The kind that cut through clothing and found skin regardless. He didn't slow down for it. He moved across the courtyard with his jaw set and his hands loose at his sides and his eyes already sweeping the grounds ahead, cataloguing shadows, measuring distances, doing the thing his father had trained him to do in every unfamiliar situation — assess first, move second, feel later if at all.
The feeling part wasn't cooperating tonight.
He could hear his guards moving. Spread out across the property in the pattern he'd drilled into them, methodical, overlapping, no gaps in coverage. They were good men. Fast. They knew these grounds better than most knew their own homes.
It wasn't enough to make the thing in his chest settle.
