Elara's POV
I woke knowing something was wrong before I could name it.
The light through the window was the same. The room was the same. The sounds of the palace waking up around me were the same. But something was different. Something had changed in the night. I lay still for a moment, listening, trying to identify what had changed.
The palace felt different.
I dressed. I pinned my hair. I put on my crown. I did not know what I was walking into, but I knew I was walking into something.
Corvus came to me before breakfast.
His face told me before his words did. The particular stillness of a man who has been up all night, who has been working through a problem that has no good solution, who has come to deliver bad news because there is no one else to deliver it.
"What is it?" I asked.
"Malakor has called an emergency council session."
I felt something cold move through my chest. "He cannot call an emergency session without my approval."
