Her sister slept deeply—for the first time in weeks. No murmured fragments of dreams, no fever burning through the night. Just the quiet rise and fall of steady breath.
Relief came in a strange shape. It didn’t rush in like a wave but settled, cautious and fragile. Thessa sat very still, afraid to spook it. The tonic from Keeper Halwen seemed to be working.
Outside, the city had grown colder. The kind of chill that crept into her nails even when she sat close to the fire. Candles refused to stay lit. The mirror in the corner of the room had stopped catching her reflection properly—it shimmered now, as if underwater. Once, she swore it blinked.
Her mother hadn’t come home.
Three nights now. Thessa kept telling herself there were reasons. Shrine work, maybe. Another gathering. Maybe someone had fallen sick, and she’d stayed to help. It was a holy week.
Thessa finished her meal and rinsed the bowls in silence. The water had long gone tepid, but she scrubbed every edge and curve with unnecessary care, letting the motion calm her. She dried them slowly, one by one, and set them back on the crooked shelf above the hearth, where her mother always insisted they go.
Still, her fingers wouldn’t stop trembling. She stared at them for a moment, willing the shaking to pass. It didn’t. So she reached for the broom. It was something to do. The strawbristles rasped across the floor, soft at first, then firmer. Step, sweep. Step, sweep.
She should be back.
She opened the door to sweep outside where the air snapped colder. Her breath fogged in front of her face as she stepped onto the stoop and swept aimlessly at dust that wasn’t there. The street was still mostly asleep, neighbors muttering behind closed shutters, shop windows half-lit with candles that guttered despite glass.
Then the bells rang.
They pounded through the district, and the sound made her flinch so hard she dropped the broom. It clattered against the wall, forgotten. She ran to the corner of the lane, heart leaping into her throat.
People were spilling into the road, sleep-mussed and half-dressed. A woman shouted from a window. A man stumbled barefoot through the muck, eyes wide.
She turned—slowly, as if her body already knew what her mind refused to grasp—and looked toward the Ivory Bastion.
Smoke.
Black clouds bloomed in the sky, thick and roiling. Fire licked at the high white walls that had once glinted like sun-touched bone.
She grabbed the sleeve of the man nearest her.
“What happened?” she demanded.
The man was already half-gone, adrenaline and fear dragging him forward. But he paused.
“The heir is dead,” he stuttered. “Some say the castle is cursed. The Bastion’s burning—they say it was Kaer’Vosh. They say—” He stopped, swallowed, voice cracking. “They say all the Rhyssa clergy burned with it.”
She heard the words. Understood their meaning. But they didn’t land.
“What?” she whispered.
The man was already moving again.
The smoke rose higher. A tower caved inward. Bells still rang, now joined by shouting, footsteps. But none of it felt louder than the quiet realization blooming inside her like rot.
Her mother was not coming back.
Not tonight.
Not ever.
Chapter 78
Alaric sat cross-legged on the stone floor of his guest chamber, surrounded by half-packed trunks and books in varying states of abuse—dog-eared, margin-scribbled, ribbon-marked.
He hadn’t thought he’d be leaving Edrathen under these circumstances. He’d imagined packing like this once. Arms full of answers, mind alight with discovery, Evelyne at his side, her curiosity awakened.
He had wanted the truth. But not like this. Not with so many names left in blood.
