Thoren
The gunshot cracked through the square so sharply that for one disorienting heartbeat, the entire city seemed to go still.
Then the crowd broke.
Not into full panic—not yet—but into the first dangerous ripples of it. Hundreds of people rose at once, chairs scraping over stone, voices climbing in confusion as heads turned in every direction searching for the source. The musicians near the fountain dropped their instruments mid-note. A vendor shouted for someone to get back from his cart. Somewhere near the western side of the square, a child began to cry.
My hand tightened around Nevara’s instinctively as I stepped in front of her without thinking.
Kael was already moving.
One second he stood at the edge of the platform, his eyes sweeping the crowd in the same quiet pattern the
