Kaelen walked away from the council building with his remaining hand clenched tight. Disbelief still burned in his chest. They had summoned him, stared through him, and then thrown him out without a single question that made sense. No explanation. No demand for service. No clear judgment. Just a brief, invasive silence followed by dismissal.
What refused to leave him was the final remark about Mira and Helga.
The way the elf had phrased it—"You did not see them die, did you?"—carried an implication he could not ignore. It sounded almost as if she believed they might still be alive. The suggestion lodged under his skin like a splinter. He had spent months searching after the dungeon collapse. Every trail, every residual trace, every fragmented report had pointed to the same conclusion: they were dead. He had accepted that truth the hard way. To have it questioned so casually felt like deliberate cruelty.
