POV: SERAPHINE
I'd been dreading this conversation for days.
Watching Elara bury the dead in Thornhaven, seeing little Mira plant flowers on her mother's grave with hands too small to understand the weight of what she'd lost—it had broken something in me. Some last piece of denial I'd been clinging to about my role in all this.
"Duke Corvin isn't just leading the Purists," I said, forcing myself to meet Elara's eyes across the makeshift command tent. "He's my uncle. Our uncle. Mother's younger brother."
The words tasted like poison.
Elara stared at me. Kael's expression darkened, but he remained silent, letting me continue.
"I didn't know until recently," I said quickly. "Mother kept him at a distance—he was always the ambitious one, the one who resented that she inherited the throne instead of him. But I've been investigating since the assassination attempt, trying to understand who was behind it. And everything leads back to him."
