The castle had fallen into one of those rare, shimmering lulls: no thunder of feet, no wails, no shrieks of fire or magic or chaos.
Just a shaft of late sunlight spilling through high windows, catching the tiny black horns of Aliyah as she slumbered peacefully, cheek pillowed against Malvoria's broad shoulder.
The child's breath was a faint, rhythmic whisper—warm, soft, impossibly fragile for a half-demon.
Malvoria sat as still as a statue, only daring to breathe when Aliyah did. She could have watched her niece sleep for hours.
But with every minute of this hard-won peace, an itch began to crawl between Malvoria's shoulder blades, growing steadily, inevitably, into outright boredom.
Her mind was built for motion, for tension, for command; a nap, even for so noble a cause as babysitting, was always torture.
A muted thump echoed from the adjoining chamber. Then again, louder: thump, thump—like someone pummeling a training dummy with far too much enthusiasm.
