Kieran’s POV

The ground is quiet now.

Not peaceful—quiet in the way a battlefield goes silent after the last scream fades, when the air still remembers violence but the hands finally stop shaking. I stand at the edge of the ancestral grounds, my weight leaning heavier on one leg than the other, the wound in my side still warm beneath its bindings. I can feel the relic’s echo in my blood, subdued, resting. Shield, not crown. Chosen, but not exalted.

Ahead of me, Killian walks.

No chains. ...