Chapter 84: Mist
The next morning, the mist hadn’t yet burned off when something tugged me out of sleep.
Not a sound.
A shift.
A tension in the air — the same kind that hangs over the world right before lightning strikes.
I pushed off the thin blanket and stepped outside. Evershade was quiet. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that tells you something is about to happen, and it won’t ask permission first.
Dew clung to everything — the roof beams, the wheat sprouts Gaia had coaxed from ruined soil, even Santina’s illusion-lanterns that still glowed faintly in the dark.
Thaddeus sat on the well’s edge, polishing his bowstring. He didn’t look up.
“You felt it too,” I said.
“The wind changed.” His wings twitched. “Storm’s coming.”
“Literally or metaphorically?”
“Yes,” he answered.
I exha
