Morning came without ceremony.

No bells rang from the council towers. No summons echoed through the districts. The city woke as it always had—vendors lifting shutters with stiff fingers, apprentices blinking sleep from their eyes over half-written sigils, river-fog curling through alleys like something alive—but beneath the familiar rhythms ran something new and brittle.

Awareness.

It clung to Varenth the way tension clung to a held breath.

Draven felt it the moment he stepped outside ...