Elara POV:
The courtyard is already alive when I step outside, though the energy moving through it feels different from an ordinary day. Wolves carry out their routines with the same discipline they always have. Last night didn’t fracture anything.
Velarys rests beneath my skin, the pack feels her now in a way they didn’t before, not as a distant legend whispered about in stories but as something real that stood in their courtyard and defended what belonged here.
And standing at the center of that courtyard - Rhydan.
He’s leaning over the long stone table near the well, sleeves rolled to his elbows, dark hair slightly disordered from the early hour. Reports and patrol maps are spread across the stone, the faint glow of a tablet lighting the center of the table while two patrol guards s
