"Loyalty is not to the land we stand on, but to the power that will survive the flood."
LORD ARDANIS POV
The rumble that woke me was not thunder, but the sound of a promise finally kept. I opened my eyes slowly, unhurried, as if I had been waiting for this moment all my life. I had. The wards groaned beneath the weight of the tide pressing against them. Even the stone under my feet shivered. Vaelor stirred beside me, half-wrapped in the velvet blankets, his brows furrowed in his sleep. My fingers brushed his cheek as I slipped from the bed. He did not wake. Good, let him sleep through the first breath of this rebirth.
