The woman had Aelara's eyes.
Same shape. Same darkness. Same slight pull at the outer corners that Aelara had studied in every mirror she'd stood in front of for twenty-four years. She knew that look from the inside. Seeing it on someone else's face hit her like a door slamming open in a room she thought had been sealed.
Her mother. Mira Moonfall.
Dead. Eleven years. The Moon Scholars' massacre her father's body recovered, her mother simply gone, and Aelara had told herself fire, told herself the chaos of it, told herself all the things you tell yourself when there's no body and the alternative explanation is too large to hold without breaking something. She'd built a whole life on top of that explanation. Raised two children on top of it. Survived things on top of it.
She understood now what a missing body actually means.
