The eastern tower felt smaller with every passing hour, as though the stone walls themselves were closing in to listen.
Seren stood at the tall arched window, staring out over the frost-covered gardens where moonlight painted the hedges in silver and deep shadow. The bond hummed steadily inside her chest, but beneath it something wilder stirred—bones aching with a low, persistent fire, senses stretched so thin she could hear the distant clink of a guard's armour three floors below and smell the faint jasmine-and-frost scent that now clung to every threatening message from Elowen like a signature.
She no longer doubted the Deepening. The change was accelerating, unstoppable.
And Princess Elowen knew it too.
The first attempt came before midnight.
