"Your jealousy has already done enough," Edric said.
The words left his mouth colder than he intended, but he did not take them back.
He was old enough to remember the aftermath of what had happened four decades ago. Not the truth of it, perhaps, but the shadows it had left behind. He had been a boy then, too young to understand the politics, too young to be trusted with secrets, yet old enough to remember the fear and fascination that swept through the noble houses when the Caelvaris estate burned.
Everyone had spoken about it. Not openly. Never openly. But whispers traveled where declarations could not.
The destruction of the Caelvaris family mansion had become the kind of story nobles exchanged behind closed doors and lowered voices. The details shifted depending on the speaker, but the shock never changed.
Edric remembered sitting in his grandfather's study shortly afterward.
