Small things happened in that stillness—Nyxsha sharpening her claws but keeping her glances toward Azareel when she thought no one noticed, her fur flattening, her shoulders relaxing despite herself.
Virelya stretched across the cold stones, her coils moving like silk in the shadows, her face unchanging but her tail looping just faintly behind Azareel's back—close, but not touching.
Not yet.
Sylvara, kneeling beside him, let a single vine rest against his shoulder, her touch holding no drain, no seduction—just warmth, tentative and real.
Then the wind came—a low, vibrating hum that made the air taste metallic, the statues groaning as if awakening from slumber.
The moss recoiled, curling inward like frightened fingers.
Somewhere in the city, a bell tolled once, deep and echoing, like a knell for something that hadn't died yet, its resonance vibrating through their bones.
They all stood, the moment shattering, their forms tense in the crimson-tinted gloom.
