His breath hitched, a shallow, broken thing.
“And she is not yours to touch.”
Caelira
I woke suddenly with the sense that something was missing.
I lay still, listening.
The space around me felt unbalanced, as if something I was used to orienting myself against had shifted just out of reach.
I stayed there a moment longer, testing the feeling without touching it. It didn’t sharpen or fade. It simply remained, steady and quietly wrong.
Atlas.
The thought came without invitation, sharp enough that I pushed upright before my mind could argue with it. I swung my feet to the floor and crossed the room without bothering to dress properly, the cool stone biting through the thin soles of my slippers.
The corridor beyond my door was dim and orderly, the castle holding its breath in the way it did before dawn. My steps echoed softly as I crossed the threshold, the sound behaving as expected, arriving when it should.
Atlas’s door stood closed at the far end of the hall. I approached it without slowing, my attention narrowing as I lifted my hand and knocked once.
No answer came.
I waited a heartbeat longer than courtesy required, then reached for the latch.
His chambers were dark and empty. The bed was untouched, the fire cold, the air holding only the faintest echo of him, as though he had passed through and taken the weight of himself with him. Nothing was out of place, he hadn’t left in a hurry.
I turned and let the door close behind me. The unease didn’t fade, it sharpened, settling deeper.
The corridor stretched ahead, the castle quiet in the way it was before dawn. My steps carried me without hesitation toward the wing Joren favored when he wanted to be found.
Light spilled from beneath his door.
I knocked once and then opened it without waiting.
Joren looked up from his desk, a half-smile already forming before it faltered. He sat sideways in his chair, one boot hooked around the rung, a ledger open and forgotten beneath his elbow.
A chicken was perched on his shoulder.
I paused, my attention catching despite myself. Its feathers stuck out at odd angles, some still faintly singed at the tips. It blinked at me, unbothered, then gave a small, indignant cluck and resettled itself against Joren’s neck as though that were the most reasonable place in the world to be.
Joren followed my gaze and sighed. “Before you ask,” he said, “no, I don’t know how this happened either.”
He glanced at me again, eyes flicking briefly to my expression, then back to the ledger as if a lightning scorched chicken on his shoulder barely ranked in the courts list of problems.
“And yes,” he added, “it’s very opinionated.”
The chicken clucked once, as if it were offended.
Joren lifted his hand and nudged it back into place without looking. “See,” he said. “Hostile witness.”
Then his attention returned to me fully, the humor thinning as he took in the way I was standing.
“Well,” he said. “This is either very bad news, or you’re here about the chicken.”
“Where is he,” I said.
Joren’s expression shifted, the last traces of levity draining away as he straightened in his chair. He didn’t answer right away. That pause told me more than any evasion could have.
