[3rd POV : Astrae ]
Astrae did not sense danger.
That was the problem.
The palace corridor was quiet in the ordinary way Solcarth preferred. Thick stone swallowed sound. Old enchantments softened footsteps, blurred presence, discouraged lingering. Nothing screamed warning. Nothing resisted her passage. To her senses, it felt like every other route she had already tested and dismissed as harmless.
She walked calmly, hands folded in front of her, posture relaxed, the image of a young assistant moving with purpose but without authority. The act came easily now. Too easily.
Her confidence had grown with every successful intrusion.
She could still feel her wings.
Not physically, not as they once were, but as a steady pull deep inside her chest, a direction rather than a shape. The sensation had sharpened over the last few days. It no longer wandered. It no longer faded. It pointed clearly and insistently toward the deeper structures beneath the palace.
Toward Caedryn's domain.
