The sky was too still.
No birds. No wind. No scent of snow.
Just silence.
Liora stood on the training ridge, eyes fixed on the horizon, where the northern tree line met the curve of the mountain. She didn't say it out loud.
But she felt it.
"They're coming."
Darius moved beside her, tense. "Scouts haven't seen movement."
"They won't," she said. "Not until it's too late."
Kaelen appeared moments later, strapping a blade to his back. "Then we don't wait for the signal. We move now."
Liora nodded.
But Kaelen didn't look at her.
Not really.
And she felt that too.
---
The northern village burned at sunrise.
They were too late.
By the time Liora and the guards arrived, smoke had already choked the valley's throat. Homes collapsed into themselves. Not razed—hollowed. Burned from the inside out.
But no bodies.
No blood.
Just absence.
"They weren't trying to kill," Kael muttered. "They were sending a message."
