The heavy silence of the receiving gallery stretched between us like a drawn blade. For seven and a half years, the boundary between us had been defined by leagues of frozen mountain stone, royal decrees, and absolute administrative distance. Now, standing mere inches apart, the raw reality of his defiance hung in the air, thick with the scent of wet wool, woodsmoke, and old blood.
I looked down at his calloused, dirt-smudged hands, then up at the faint, shimmering trace of heat radiating from beneath the collar of his rough gray tunic. The Council’s binding ward-pelts were already reacting to his presence deep within the capital, eating away at his flesh as punishment for breaching the northern quarantine.
"You're bleeding your own life away by standing here," I said, my voice dropping
