[Let's look back for a moment, to see what happened.]
Azhriel left the banquet hall quickly, his steps silent and his expression calm, though beneath that stillness there was a faint tremor in his hands.
The tremor wasn't from fear of discovery. It was from what he had just done.
Luke was dead—by his hand.
It wasn't about who Luke was, or what he had done. It wasn't about good or bad. It wasn't even about whether he deserved it.
What weighed on him was something else entirely.
He had killed someone.
A person.
Just months ago, he had been an ordinary teenager—someone who sat in front of a screen, who laughed at games, who had never even been in a real fight except some cases.
In that world, in both lives before this one, he had never crossed that line.
And now, he had.
The weight of it pressed on his chest. Strange, uncomfortable. An odd, hollow feeling he couldn't quite describe.
He paused in the corridor, lifting a hand to his face.
