It began with a vibration subtle at first, like the shiver of a glass touched by a distant thunderclap. Enara felt it in her bones before the castle walls even acknowledged it, the tiniest tremor thrumming through the marble beneath her bare feet as she stood by the open balcony, staring out over the obsidian cliffs of Narthalem.
The Demon Kingdom had never been quiet, not truly. There was always a hum, a song of subterranean magma and whispering winds, of wingbeats and tail flicks and the slow heartbeat of an ancient, breathing land. But this was something else.
Something wrong.
She didn't turn when the doors creaked open behind her. She didn't need to.
"I heard it too," came Daena's voice rough like stones grinding against one another, yet oddly soothing in the way only an old battle-scarred grandmother could be. "It's begun."
