25 MINUTES EARLIER
DRAKENFELL - TRAINING FIELD
Gavriel Sterling was walking down to the training field with Elara when he froze.
Full stop. Mid-stride. Both legs locked.
His pupils dilated. Wide.
His fist clenched. Hard. Every tendon in his forearm standing taut, knuckles compressing into a formation that had nothing to do with anger and everything to do with the specific, violent effort of keeping a reaction inside a body that wanted to let it out. Then unclenched. Slow. Deliberate. Finger by finger, like a man disarming himself manually.
Elara saw.
Her eyes followed his line of sight to Serena, standing in the center of the training field in her training suit, hair pulled back. The Beta Luna catalogued the freeze, the pupils, the fist, the unclenching, and filed all of it into a folder she had been building since the morning she found Serena on top of him with a bleeding hand and a glowing mark on his shoulder.
She waited.
