Nythir sat at the end of the hallway, keeping watch. He was always keeping watch.
Esther found Charon in the front room, sipping tea while the last lantern flickered low. She looked tired—not from the lateness of the night, but from having too many mouths to feed,too many children to care for, too much stress for a single woman to bear.
“You wanted to know about her,” Charon said. “Your mother.”
Esther sat across from her, hands tightening in her lap. “Yes. Please.”
Charon nodded once, motion slow with memory.
“She wasn’t born noble,” she began. “She was born in this very town. She garnered attention for being exceptionally gifted. Her magic healed where others failed. It soothed storms. It calmed children.”
She smiled faintly. “She became queen not through politics, but through kindness.”
Esther swallowed. “I never knew.”
“Of course you didn’t,” Charon said softly. “The court liked rewriting her story. But we remember her. The poor. The sick. The orphans. The forgotten.”
She gestured toward the sleeping children. “Many of them live because she cared. But when she died, so did those in power who cared.”
A tear slipped down Esther’s cheek before she could stop it.
“She left something for you,” Charon said gently, reaching into a small wooden box. “She told me that when her daughter found her way to me, to give it to her.”
She handed her a folded letter, sealed with wax imprinted with a tiny sun.
Esther’s breath hitched. Her mother’s seal. Her mother’s handwriting. A letter in the hands of someone she had just met—yet again.
Her fingertips trembled as she broke the wax and unfolded the paper. The ink had faded, but the words glowed in her eyes like gold:
My dearest Essie,
If you are reading this, then fate has guided you farther than fear could ever hold you. I cannot know the life you grew into beside this one path I saw, but I know your heart.
Lead like a queen, my love—Not with the crown, but with compassion, not with power, but with purpose.
Never forget your heart. It is your most extraordinary magic.
My love is always with you.
Esther pressed the paper to her chest. Her fingers sparked, as if they were responding to the trace of magic left in her mother’s words.
“I didn’t know her,” she whispered. “Not really.”
“But she knew you,” Charon said. “Before you were born, she spoke about you like you were the sunrise.”
Esther covered her mouth to keep from breaking. Footsteps moved quietly behind her. Nythir’s hand landed softly on her shoulder, kissing the top of her head. She didn’t turn around—not yet. She just let herself feel it:
The love she had lost.
The love she had found.
And the love she didn’t fully understand yet, warming her from where he stood.
33
Esther
How to help others: sweat, cry, haul buckets, and try not to traumatize any orphans.
