Lola’s POV

Sleep didn’t come easy.

Not after standing in that council room.

Not after challenging my father.

Not after watching Kael’s eyes go dark with the weight of suspicion and isolation again.

I tossed aside the blankets before sunrise and got dressed quietly, pulling my dagger from its sheath and strapping it to my thigh. If there was one thing I knew about my father, it was that he never accused without cause.

But this time… he was wrong.

I had to prove it.

Even if I had to do it behind his back.

I found Kael before dawn at the old chapel ruins, mapping patrol routes across a...