The rain began sometime after midnight.

It came quietly at first, thin as breath against the broken windows, before it thickened into a downpour that drowned the stars.

Elaria stood on the balcony of the west wing, watching lightning crawl across the sky above the fortress. Each flash illuminated the world in fragments — the towers scorched black, the courtyards littered with the remnants of battle, and beyond it all, the mountains veiled in storm.

Behind her, the fire crackled low in the ...