The sound echoes down the stone hall—slow, deliberate, weighted with purpose.
And then she appears.
The light from the corridor catches first on her hair—a muted chestnut streaked with silver, half-tamed and braided like a crown. Her frame is leaner, her face thinner, but her eyes—Stars above—her eyes are the same. Green as the forests of Mount Lyssar. The same eyes that used to tuck me into bed. The same eyes that burned through smoke and chaos and told me to run.
“Little Star,” she breathes.
The sound is quiet, reverent. But it breaks something in me.
Everything stops.
The chamber, the candlelight, the breath in my lungs—everything folds inward until there’s only that voice, that name.
My body doesn’t move. My throat closes. I think I hear Seren gasp, maybe even Ronyn swear softly, but it’s like I’m hearing through water.
Because she can’t be here.
She can’t be alive.
I should run to her. I should fall to my knees. I should scream.
But I just… can’t.
Kael says my name through the tether, but I can’t reach for him either.
Because if I move, she might disappear.
If I blink, the illusion will break.
Her eyes glisten with tears that don’t fall. She takes a single step forward.
And that’s when the walls of my composure crack.
All the air leaves me in a soundless sob—more breath than voice—as the truth rips through me.
Revelation feels like resurrection—beautiful, painful, and impossible to survive unchanged.
My mother is alive.
And the girl she told to run has finally stopped running.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
KAEL
The room hasn’t takena breath. Not since the wordsLittle Star.
Elyssara stands frozen, her eyes hollow with disbelief, and every muscle in my body screams to move to her—to shield her, to steady her—but I can’t tell if touching her would save her or shatter her.
Lesara Dawnmere.
Alive.
Untouched by the years that broke her daughter in half—that’s the part that makes anger rise in my veins, sharp and hot.
I flick through memories, trying to make sense of this—how did we not see this coming?I rifle through moments; the way Gellesk calls her Princess, the Nymerians never once referring to her as Queen, but the one that demands my attention is Tarrakai.You are not Queen yet.
They all knew, and no one fucking told her.
