"Some inherit crowns while others inherit silence and the sins the world buried too deep to name."
Rell's POV
The mid-morning sun was bright, but inside the Keep it felt cold. Too still. A silence that was not peaceful was the kind of silence that hums before a storm, where the air itself holds its breath. Riven had left before dawn quiet, deliberate as if silence itself could disguise how shaken he had been. The door had clicked shut behind him with the soft finality of someone trying not to be heard, as though the walls might gossip about the cracks in his composure.
