Aurora's POV
The silence woke me before the light did.
It wasn't peaceful. It wasn't gentle. It was the kind of silence that rang in your ears, sharp and invasive, like the aftermath of an explosion you hadn't heard coming. I lay beneath the furs, staring at the ceiling as faint dawn filtered through the carved stone windows, waiting for the familiar sensation to return.
The pull.
The ache.
The echo of another presence brushing the edge of my thoughts.
Nothing answered.
My mark was quiet.
Not dormant. Not healed. Quiet as if something had deliberately stepped back, withdrawn just enough to remind me what absence felt like.
Fear slid slowly into my chest.
Taken.
The word surfaced again, uninvited, relentless. It didn't come with images this time. No fire. No running feet. Just certainty. The kind that settled into bone and refused to be destroyed.
