Everyone had heard the rumors. The Avalorian delegation. A princess of the fae. Terms of alliance, or terms of surrender, depending on who whispered it.

The air turned cold. Not the ordinary chill of a Basgiath morning—this was something older. Something deliberate.

A seam of light split the space between the carved stone pillars. It widened with a sound like ice cracking on a frozen lake, and then—

They stepped through.

Three of them. Clad in pale leather and silver mail, their movements unhurried, synchronized. The two flanking figures were tall, sharp-featured, their eyes scanning the courtyard with the watchful stillness of predators. But it was the woman at the center who drew every gaze.

She did not look impressed. She looked like someone taking inventory.

Her gaze swept the rows of riders with a quiet, glacial detachment. Unhurried. Unbothered. And then it stopped.

It stopped on Liam Mairi.

A heartbeat. A flicker. Two shards of glacial blue meeting his stare from across the courtyard, and something in the temperature seemed to drop another degree.