Kaelen's POV
Morning light filtered through the heavy curtains of the queen's chamber. Soft. Gray. The kind of light that came just after dawn, when the world was waking but not yet awake.
I opened my eyes slowly, my body still heavy with sleep and the exhaustion of the night before. The room still held the heat and scent of what had passed between us, that mix of sweat and perfume and something else, something that belonged only to Elara. But the intensity had cooled. The air was quieter now. Still.
Too still.
I reached for her without thinking. An instinct. My hand moving across the bed to where she should have been lying beside me, warm and soft.
She was not there.
My hand found only cold sheets.
I came fully awake in an instant. Not the slow drift into consciousness but the sharp snap of alertness that came from years of being a soldier. I sat up, my eyes scanning the chamber with the practiced assessment of a guard looking for threats.
