Violet’s POV

The silence before action is never empty.

It is crowded with fear, hope, regret, and the fragile courage it takes to step forward without knowing if the ground will still be there when your foot lands. That was the kind of silence that wrapped around the estate that night. Not the silence of sleep, but the silence of thousands of minds, scattered across continents, waiting for something they could not name.

Waiting to see if freedom had a price they could truly afford.

I stood alon