Mira’s POV

Rumors reached us before sunrise, carried by scouts who looked shaken. Their reports were scattered, but the name appeared again and again. Lyra.

I sat through the war meeting without speaking. Every voice sounded distant, as if none of them understood what that name meant. Kael kept watching me, waiting for the moment I would break.

The reports said rogue camps were forming in coordinated clusters. They were no longer hiding or moving aimlessly. Someone was pulling them together ...