"Move! Break the lines!"
The shout cut through the frozen morning like a blade, snapping the camp awake. Knights scrambled across the frost-hardened ground, boots crunching as they yanked stakes free and tore down the last of the tents before the wind could snatch them away.
Orders overlapped. Steel clanged. Horses stamped, breath fogging the air.
And through it all, Zarius Valtrane moved as if none of it weighed on him at all.
He was sharper than he'd been in a fortnight. There was something different in the way he moved, more controlled, but quieter, like a man who had put something aside and refused to reach for it again.
Nobody said anything, of course. You didn't comment on the Duke's "mood" unless you had a death wish or a very good pension plan. But the air around him had shifted.
Elios, naturally, was the exception to the rule of silence.
