(Almera POV)
Morning did not bring relief.
I woke before the light reached the lattice, my breath already shallow, my heart beating as if I had run a long distance in my sleep. The room was quiet—too quiet—save for the faint sound of water moving through stone channels far below.
The oasis was awake.
And so was the future.
I lay still, staring at the ceiling, letting the sensation settle. It was not a vision in the way my dreams were. There were no images, no voices, no scenes unfolding like fragments of memory.
It was pressure.
A tightening behind my eyes. A pull beneath my ribs. The unmistakable sense that something wanted to happen—and that it had not yet decided how.
Not blood, I realized.
Not yet.
My thoughts drifted back to the night before—the festival lights, the Church mediator's words, the way the crowd had leaned forward without realizing it. Balance. Stewardship. Guidance.
Chains, made polite.
