I could tell that something was wrong with Cassel.
It wasn't just a vague hunch or some fleeting intuition — it was the kind of realization that crawled over your skin and made the air itself feel wrong. Something in the way he stood, in the way his eyes refused to focus, in how the silence around him seemed to stretch endlessly, suffocating everyone nearby.
Even Henry stepped away from him, wearing a complicated expression that almost looked… afraid.
To say Henry was the last person who could ever fear Cassel would be an understatement. Henry had always been fearless — reckless, even — the kind of man who would walk straight into the jaws of death with a smirk. And Cassel? Cassel was his commander, his confidant, his anchor. The man Henry had followed through storms of blood and chaos.
