The Weight of Decisions
The morning at Blackthorne was bathed in sunlight, the sun bursting through silken drapes, pouring warmth upon rumpled sheets and naked flesh. Leon and Cassidy were still immersed in the echoes of their morning fire—her laughter needy, his fingers grasping, the two of them bound so intimately to each other it seemed as if the rest of the world did not and could not and would not matter. Their room reeked of sweat, perfume, and desire. To them, the war beyond those walls was a muffled hum, a storm yet to come.
But somewhere else, away from the center of Blackthorne City, the air was a completely different story.
At the edge of Weytsend, where the earth sloped into the broken ridges of Moonstone's grasp, the air hung heavy—too heavy to inhale without a sense of iron and dread weighing upon it. Campfires smoldered in the fading sky. Soldiers crept as shadows, their armor ringing, their voices low, expecting the certainty of dawn.
