"The past does not stay buried. It waits, patient and unyielding, until it finds the cracks in our carefully built walls."
The moment Ostel opened the door, I felt it before I even saw him: the tension radiating from him like a living pulse, a brittle shield holding his carefully cultivated peace in place. Cedar from the room wrapped around him, the faint lingering warmth of rest, but it did nothing to mask the spike of chaos we carried with us.
Silas's posture radiated that lethal control he always carried, the sort of energy that warned anyone near him that he was in command and not to be trifled with. Marcus's face, usually so stoic, betrayed raw, personal empathy. And me… I could feel the dread coiling in my chest like a serpent ready to strike, my Seer senses flaring with the emotional echoes of the past, the unspoken fears, the old wounds that had never healed.
Then I said it. Or, more accurately, I let the word settle into the air. Elara.
