The Divine Castle pulsed faintly—its walls responding to the footfalls of twenty-nine souls, each one carrying a burden newly pressed into their hearts.
Auralyne walked ahead, silent as the void. Her expression unreadable, silver-white lashes flickering beneath the artificial morning light. She was thinking, not brooding—calculating every angle, every consequence, every detail of Alaric's command. Cold logic meeting warm dread.
Behind her, the others followed in strange silence—not from obedience, but from shock. The air was no colder, but their skin prickled with the subtle weight of divine pressure. As if the Castle itself were listening. Watching.
It wasn't fear that bound them quiet.
It was reality.
Aurevia broke the silence first, her voice cutting through the corridor like a frost-edged blade.
"He's serious."
Her tone held no panic—only clarity. The crimson in her eyes shimmered beneath the ambient glow of runes.
