The eastern tower felt colder than it had the night before.
Seren stood at the narrow window; arms wrapped around herself against the chill that had nothing to do with temperature. The silver scars at her throat shimmered faintly whenever torchlight struck them, a quiet reminder she was no longer the same. She could feel it in her bones now: sharper hearing, quicker reflexes, the way scents lingered longer than they should. She was no longer entirely human.
And her mother had come to see it.
Marina arrived without fanfare.
No royal escort, no herald, no ceremony. Just a single guard at the tower door who stepped aside when he recognized the royal medicine woman. Marina entered alone, cloak still damp from the morning mist, grey-streaked hair escaping its usual severe knot, eyes red-rimmed from a sleepless night and a long walk through corridors that had once been familiar and now felt hostile.
She stopped three paces inside the room.
