The chill of dawn seeped through the fractured windows of the old Keep, brushing against Ryon's skin like a ghost's whisper. The council chamber was behind him now, its echoes a fading storm in the distance, but the weight of its decrees clung stubbornly to his soul. He had stepped into the biting cold of the morning air not as a supplicant, but as a man marked by defiance, each breath a promise written in frost and flame.
Around him, the silhouettes of Kaelen and Elira moved with measured urgency, their faces set in grim lines carved by years of survival. The night's shadows still clung to the stone, swallowing their steps as they made their way down the ancient corridors and toward the Keep's secret exits. Every creak of the floorboards, every distant murmur from the watchmen above, was a reminder that they were fugitives not just from the council's wrath, but from the very heart of a kingdom that no longer held place for men like them.
