The Oath Hall Reopens

Cael returned to the capital wearing the same broken crest he had been exiled in.

The city had changed its banners but not its habit of staring. When the queen summoned him into the Oath Hall, the old magic in the stone woke like it still remembered his betrayal.

She did not ask him to kneel. She asked him why the dead king had trusted him with a promise no one else was meant to hear.