Chapter 141. The Binding Token

The sky was mostly clear, with only a handful of wispy clouds drifting lazily across the pale moonlit expanse. The pavement glistened beneath my feet, slick from a rainstorm that had fallen at some point earlier—perhaps after I’d come home, or maybe even while I slept. The lingering dampness left tiny puddles in the uneven stretches of asphalt, and every streetlamp’s glow reflected off the wet surface, giving the quiet neighborhood an almost surreal shimmer.

I moved on, memories tugging at me as I walked. My parents had always treated me as more of an obligation than a daughter—cold, distant, seldom speaking to me except to criticize. Yet once, on my birthday when I was still quite young, my mother had surprised me. She gave me one of her bracelets. I can still see it now: delicate links of antique silver, filigree patterns winding around a single pale gemstone that caught the light in a thousand tiny sparkles. That year, Aurora was still alive, and my mother had shown me some