Malrik POV

Seraphiel arrived an hour later.

By then my aunt was better breaths deeper, color returning but lucidity hadn’t fully returned. Her body was mending; her mind lingered somewhere between healing and the hollowed effects of the silver. We stood half-naked in the edge of the forest, the cold nibbling at exposed skin, though none of us noticed. The chill was nothing compared to the weight of what had happened, how close we’d come to dying.

How did the council expect us to react? ...