Chapter 34. Ash, Lavender, Ink

The letter smelled like ash and lavender.

Kael didn’t bring it to me on a bridge or in a corridor where echoes would make it sound more tragic than it was. He knocked once on the door of my borrowed chamber and waited in the quiet without fidgeting. That’s his way—if he asks you to open, it’s because he’s decided he’ll stand there until his bones learn patience.

I let him in. The pup followed, then turned a slow circle and settled under the window where moonlight pooled.

He held out the folded parchment. “Seris wrote this,” he said.

The name didn’t hit like a bell. It slid, light and sharp. Seris, my mother. Not goddess. Not saint. A woman with a voice that could turn a room into a plan.

I didn’t ask why he hadn’t given it to me sooner. Questions like that, asked too early, turn into shields for both people, and shields are heavy when you’re already tired.

The ink had bloomed at the edges where rain had touched it, once. Maybe twice. I smoothed th