CAIRN POINT OF VIEW.

By the time I returned to the barracks, the fortress had begun to ease into that quiet stretch between duty and rest, a moment that never truly belonged to either.

The corridors had thinned, but they were far from empty. Guards still passed in steady intervals, their movements precise even in fatigue, armor brushing faintly against stone with a soft, rhythmic scrape. Their voices were lower now, stripped of the sharpness from earlier, but still controlled, still ...