ELARA POV
I couldn't breathe.
Standing on the citadel walls, looking down at the army spread before us, I saw her for the first time.
My mother.
Not Queen Isolde with her cold eyes and calculated words. Not the family who'd raised me as a convenient placeholder.
Anna Ashford. The woman who'd given birth to me and Seraphine. The tamer who'd sacrificed everything—her memory, her magic, her very identity—to protect me.
She knelt in the dirt, her hands bound behind her back. She had auburn hair like mine—though touched with gray now, weathered by years she didn't remember living. Her face was lined with worry and exhaustion, but when she looked up at the citadel walls, there was no recognition in her eyes.
She didn't know me.
Didn't remember giving birth to me.
Didn't remember the ritual that had stripped away her memories to hide my tamer gift.
