The apartment was too quiet.
For Belica, silence had always been an enemy, a blank canvas that invited the wrong kind of memories to paint themselves across her mind. Her living space was a curated explosion of chaos: dried lavender hanging from the rafters, jars of translucent stones that hummed in the moonlight, and stacks of leather-bound grimoires that had a habit of whispering when the wind blew through the cracked window. It was a place that smelled of ozone, old paper, and a sharp, citrusy incense that bit at the back of the throat.
Usually, the apartment felt alive, a reflection of her own restless energy. But tonight, as she sat on the edge of a velvet chaise lounge that had seen better centuries, the air felt thin. Static.
She had left the penthouse. She had left the dragon's shield in his sterile, glass-and-steel tower, and she had left him with a piece of his own heart.
