Killian’s POV

The order does not return all at once.

It arrives in fragments—quiet moments stitched together by discipline, patience, and time. I feel it in the way the packhouse breathes again, no longer braced for disaster. I see it in the lowered shoulders of warriors as they pass me in the halls, in the way guards stop gripping their weapons so tightly.

Chaos leaves scars. Order teaches the body how to live with them.

I wake before dawn, as I always do. Habit is a form of control, and ...