Morning came quietly, the kind that didn’t announce itself with birds singing or warmth but with a heavy stillness that pressed against Desiree’s chest the moment she opened her eyes.

For a few seconds, she lay still, staring at the ceiling, listening to Adrian’s soft breathing from the cradle beside her bed. The gentle rise and fall of his tiny chest grounded her in a way nothing else could. Council halls, elders, training, Roman’s absence, none of it mattered as much as this small ...