The chamber doors slammed shut behind them, the echo rattling like iron in Lyra's bones.
Kael hadn't spoken since the Circle. He hadn't touched her either — not when she staggered out of the flames blistered and ash-stained, not when the nobles whispered curses under their breath, not even when Thorne tried to press bandages into her palms. He had only stared at the floor as if every stone were a throat he longed to crush.
Now, alone in their chamber, that silence wrapped tighter, suffocating.
Lyra braced herself against the wall, breath shuddering, body trembling with the phantom memory of fire. The Circle had left her skin scorched, but the whispers burned deeper. Vaelora. Vessel. Mine.
She pressed a hand to her chest, as if she could smother the word before it rooted.
"You should not have been made to prove yourself," Kael said at last. His voice was low, roughened — not the command of a king, but the growl of a wounded animal.
