The city did not sleep.
Neither did Alisha.
By morning, the realm was divided—not violently, but ideologically. Whispers followed her steps. Not of fear.
Of expectation.
"She carries it willingly."
"She didn't deny the sky."
"She didn't kneel."
Rowan watched her from across the strategy chamber. "You've become a lightning rod."
Alisha nodded. "Good."
"That wasn't sarcasm," Rowan said quietly. "He'll escalate."
"Yes," she replied. "Because subtlety failed."
The Eclipse stirred—not power-hungry, but focused.
"He wants to force a binary," Alisha said. "Light or shadow. Fear or surrender."
"And you?" Rowan asked.
"I'll give them a third option."
At the spire, Caelan felt it before the messengers arrived.
The wards trembled—not in instability, but strain.
"They're routing too much through her," he muttered.
The Shadow King had shifted tactics again.
Instead of attacking Caelan—
He was isolating him.
Making Alisha visible.
Making Caelan irrelevant.
When Alisha arrived at the spire that evening, her composure cracked for the first time in days.
"You felt it," she said.
"Yes," Caelan replied. "He's trying to turn me into a relic."
She stepped closer, stopping just within the boundary the wards allowed.
"He thinks if I outgrow you," she said softly, "I'll let you go."
Caelan's jaw tightened. "And will you?"
She didn't answer immediately.
Instead, she reached out—slowly, deliberately—and pressed her palm to the invisible barrier between them.
The wards flared—
Then bent.
Just enough.
Caelan's hand met hers through the shimmer—warm, solid, real.
Her breath shook. "No."
The connection steadied.
Far away, the Shadow King felt it.
Not a blow.
A refusal.
"She's anchoring herself," he murmured. "Through him."
A pause.
Then a smile—sharp, anticipatory.
"Very well," he said. "Then I'll attack the one place she cannot rule."