The containment chamber had been scrubbed of shadow.
For the first time in weeks, the air didn’t hum with the taste of corruption. It should have been peaceful — the stillness of victory, the calm earned after chaos — but Avery could feel the lie in it. Peace shouldn’t echo.
She sat at the edge of her cot, watching the pale light pulse through the warded glass walls. Beyond the translucent barrier, Kael leaned against a pillar, arms folded, gaze fixed on nothing. His armor was gone, his scythe unformed, but tension coiled through his stance like a drawn bowstring.
“They’ve stopped watching us,” Avery murmured.
Kael didn’t turn his head. “No. They just got better at hiding it.”
The corner of her mouth twitched. “You don’t think it’s over.”
“Nothing that starts with the Council ends cl
