Chapter 146

* Elora*

The messenger came at dawn.

He didn’t wear armor or wield a blade. No threat in his posture, no challenge in his hands. Just robes the color of old parchment and a symbol pressed over his heart: the empty circle. It wasn’t inked. It had been burned in, branded so deep the skin around it gleamed with scar tissue and silence.

He didn’t speak at first.

He simply stepped into the clearing lik