Juna stood beside the parapet, her silver hair whipping across her face as she looked out over the slumbering pine valleys.
Juna tightened her grip on the parapet and listened for Hajin's footsteps behind her while the last patrol crossed the northern wall.
Far below in the sleeping city, the faint glow of Tessa's bakery chimney sent a thin spiral of gray smoke into the clear night sky.
Hajin stepped beside her, unfastening his woolen cloak and draping it gently across her armored shoulders.
"The celestial viewers are flooding the transmission with millions of messages," the summoner spoke softly, watching the floating golden runes.
"They want to witness how the solar vanguard heals her broken heart."
Juna turned toward him in the darkness, her eyes shimmering with vulnerable, honest exhaustion as the wind howled around them.
"I do not want an audience of millions watching me cry over my dead cubs, Hajin," she whispered, her lip trembling.
