Chapter 72
The space did not remain still after the thing stepped toward Kael. Something in the air shifted, subtle at first, but impossible to ignore once it settled. It no longer felt like a place that was watching or testing. It felt like something had made a decision, and everything around them was beginning to follow it.
Ariana felt the change before she fully understood it. Her chest tightened, not from fear, but from instinct. It was the same feeling she had learned to trust when something was about to go wrong.
"Kael," she said, her voice sharper than before.
He did not move, but she saw the reaction anyway. His shoulders tensed slightly, and the lightning around his arm pulled inward, tightening as if something inside him had already begun to answer. That was what frightened her. He was not being forced. He was responding.
