The fire had died completely, leaving only embers that glowed faintly in the darkness, casting long, ghostly shadows across the stone walls. The room was cold, the kind of cold that seeped into bones and settled there, and the silence between them had shifted, no longer heavy with fear and tears but charged with something else. Something sharper. Something that had been buried beneath Kaelen's patience, beneath his understanding, beneath his desperate need to hold onto her.
Kaelen had not moved from the window seat. His hand still held hers, but his grip had tightened, and his jaw was set in a rigid line. His winter-gray eyes, which had been soft with understanding moments before, had hardened into something she had rarely seen: something that looked like disappointment.
