C223 A MORTAL HEART IN AN IMMORTAL WAR

The village did not know it was about to matter.

It woke the way it usually did—goats bleating for feed, smoke rising from cooking fires, children chasing one another across dirt paths worn thin by years of bare feet. Mortals did not sense fate approaching. They sensed weather, hunger, and fear when it approached too close.

By noon, the fear arrived.

Aria felt it first