"She was a charmer, indeed…" he murmured, voice low, almost too soft to catch beneath the shuffle of boots and murmur of magic-stitched wind.
Elara's breath snagged.
Then—
"Not in the way people usually mean it," he continued. "She was… cold. Sharp. But not cruel. Like someone who had learned how to survive by making silence into armor."
Silence into armor…
The words sliced.
Not because they were wrong.
But because they were exact.
A phantom ripple broke through her. Not seen. Not heard. But felt—in the spine, in the blood. Like the first whisper of snow against an open wound.
Stormhaven. Frosted archways and marble laced with rot. Footsteps echoing through empty chambers while courtiers gossiped in rooms too loud to hear grief.
That girl—the one they exiled before they buried her—she had spoken like this, hadn't she?
Cold.
Somehow.
Sharp.
But not cruel.
Just too tired to be anything else.
Elara didn't move. Didn't turn. Didn't breathe.
