Leah
The nymphs fled. They slipped from their posts at Darien's bedside with the silent, liquid grace of their kind, their luminescent skin flickering with panic as they squeezed past the ruined doors and vanished into the corridor. I let them go. They were tools. Instruments. The hand that wielded them was still pressed against the wall in front of me.
Rayanna's eyes tracked the nymphs' escape. Something shifted in her expression. The fear was still there, but it had been joined by something else. Calculation. The cold, efficient survival instinct of a woman who had lived by knowing when to fight and when to flee and when to gamble everything on a single desperate play.
“This is Korvax's fault.” Her voice came out ragged. Stripped of its composure, its elegance, its practiced authority
