-Elara Voss:
The castle was quiet at night.
The halls, so often filled with the sounds of voices and footsteps during the day, were now wrapped in silence, broken only by the occasional creak of old stone settling into the darkness.
A cool breeze whispered through the open windows, carrying with it the scent of damp earth and the distant hum of the forest beyond the castle walls.
I should have been asleep.
I had tried. I had lain in bed, staring up at the ceiling, listening to the slow rhythm of my breath, waiting for sleep to take me. But my body had been restless, my thoughts too tangled, my magic humming beneath my skin like an untamed thing.
I needed to move.
So I slipped out of bed, pulling a cloak around my shoulders before stepping out into the night.
