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~Kael's POV
The hall was filled with noise, laughter, music, clapping, women shrieking with delight as Uncle Fridolf twirled them one after another. He looked the same as I remembered him, only older and rougher. His beard was thicker, streaked with gray, his eyes sharper but full of that same charm he used to wield like a blade.
I leaned back in my chair, arms folded over my chest, watching him. Something about it sat wrong with me. After all these years, after disappearing without a single word, he comes back like this? Dancing, laughing, drinking, as if nothing had happened?
I turned to my brothers, lowering my voice.
"Tell me you don't find this strange," I said, my tone flat but heavy. "Our uncle returns after years of silence, no word, no letter, no sign of life. And now here he is, drinking and dancing with women like he never left. Doesn't that bother you?"
