RAVYN'S POV
I turned back slowly, the movement deliberate, measured—like a leaf caught between wind and gravity. And I smiled. A delicate, glass-fragile curve of the lips that hovered somewhere between disbelief and the quiet scream of, How, exactly, did my life spiral into this particular moment?
"Do you still require my service, my Lord Commander?" I asked, my voice laced with a soft tension, the kind only those desperate to maintain composure would recognize. My smile was tight-lipped, barely holding shape, and I swallowed carefully—my pride, my nerves, and perhaps my common sense.
Somewhere in the skies above, I silently prayed. Not to the gods—they had long since stopped listening—but to the moon, or the wind, or even the rusted hinges of fate.
Please send me away. Please let this man lose whatever lingering curiosity he still has in me. Let him be fickle, distracted, disinterested.
