Liora woke before the sound reached her.

She always did.

There was no noise in the palace, no cry, no tremor, no crack of breaking wards, but something inside her chest tightened, sharp and instinctive, as if a thread she’d been holding slack all her life had suddenly gone taut.

She sat up slowly, one hand pressed flat over her sternum.

Still.

Listen first.

The habit was old. Older than this palace. Older than the name she answered to now. Panic had never helped ...