Chapter 191

CHAPTER 33… VALENTINA I woke before the sun. At the feeling of the palace breathed differently around me. For a moment, I lay still, half-drowned in sleep, Andres’s arm heavy around my waist, his warmth anchoring me. His heartbeat was steady beneath my cheek. Calm and Controlled. Too controlled. Something had happened. I could feel it. I didn’t need prophecy or visions to know that. My body had learned the language of danger long ago. It spoke now in quiet pressure behind my ribs, in the way the air felt… tilted. Like a floor that had shifted half an inch when no one was looking. I eased out of Andres’s hold carefully, sliding from the bed without waking him. He didn’t stir— but his arm twitched once, instinctive, as though searching. Even asleep, he was guarding. I pulled a robe around myself and went to Luciano’s room. He slept on his side, his lips parted, one tiny hand fisted into the moonweave blanket. The silver shimmer beneath his skin was faint— barely there now, like the echo