Aelira didn’t leave the tree right away.

 

She stayed long after Theon’s footsteps faded, her body curled in the crook of the branch, her eyes fixed on the bruised sky. The sunset was magnificent—gold spilling into rose, streaks of violet threading the clouds. Birds crossed in flocks, their wings cutting through light as though they belonged to something freer, higher, untouchable.

 

For a fleeting moment, she wanted to follow them. To stretch herself past the walls, the garden, the chains that made her more of a shadow than girl.

 

But she didn’t.

 

Her place was here, bound to the bark, the shade, the stillness. The tree had been her home as long as she could remember—her refuge, her prison, her comfort.

 

When the last rays dimmed, she slipped down, silent as always, and made her way back to her quarters.

 

The door creaked open—and she stepped.

 

Vaelen was inside.

 

He sat at her table, silver-streaked head bent over a book, long fingers turning the pages with the same precision he gave to wielding power. At the sight of him, something unspoken escaped her lips—not a word, just the faintest sigh.

 

Because of all days, it had to be today.

 

Their relationship was hard to name. Not master and disciple. Not uncle and niece. Not strangers, either. They shared a single tether—Kaeyla—and in all else, there was distance. Vaelen was still Vaelen: strict, deliberate, his pride bound tighter than armor. Aelira, no longer a child desperate for love, had stopped expecting warmth. They moved in orbit around each other, cold and sharp, each existing for Kaeyla’s sake alone.

 

He did not look up at first, but when he finally did, his eyes lingered. For a heartbeat, the book paused in his hand. He had noticed. The faint swelling at her eyes. A trace of something raw he had not seen in her for years.

 

But his pride did not let him ask.

 

“As usual,” he said dryly, voice cool as stone, “I am not welcome here.”

 

Aelira said nothing. She crossed the room without acknowledgment, poured herself water, and drank it in one steady motion. Then, setting the cup down with a dull thud, she spoke, her voice low but cutting.

 

“You didn’t tell me Kaeyla is to be engaged.”

 

The air sharpened. Vaelen froze.

 

His tone changed—colder, sharper. “Where did you hear that?”

 

Aelira lowered herself onto the window ledge opposite him, head resting against the carved pillar. Beyond the window was nothing but the outer wall, but her gaze drifted as if searching for the world beyond it.

 

“Don’t worry,” she murmured. “I haven’t spoken to her. I met someone who called himself a prince of the Empire. A candidate for consort.”

 

Vaelen’s hand clenched over the book. His voice hardened. “Have I not told you to avoid contact with anyone else? With him, of all people?”

 

“He doesn’t know who I am.” Her eyes turned back to him then—green, bright, and weary. She tilted her head slightly, studying him through the half-light.

 

“What can I do?” she whispered. “I’m still human… uncle.”

 

The word struck the space between them, heavier than any blade.

 

Her gaze pierced him—not as an assassin’s, not as a weapon, but as a young woman whose life had been cut down to steel and silence. For the first time, he saw the fracture not in her skill, but in her soul.

 

Something flickered in him—anger, sorrow, memory—but he crushed it. He stood abruptly, the chair scraping back against the stone.

 

“Enough,” he said, voice tight. “Just be careful.”

 

He closed the book and set it on the table with deliberate calm. “This mission will not be like the others. It is not one you can cut through with a blade. Remember that.”

 

Without another word, he turned, robes sweeping as he left.

 

The door clicked shut.

 

Aelira stayed on the window ledge, eyes still fixed on the wall that blocked her from the world. She didn’t move, didn’t speak. The silence in the room felt like the echo of everything unsaid.

 

It was, she realized, the longest conversation they had shared in years.

 

—-

 

It took her a long while to move. The silence of the chamber pressed in around her, the faintest rustle of the words humming through the walls like a cage breathing. At last, Aelira slid from the window ledge and reached for the book Vaelen had left on the table.

 

The leather was cool against her fingertips. She opened it carefully.

 

Her eyes moved across the pages—notes written in Vaelen’s precise, rigid hand. The details unfolded slowly, each line heavier than the last.

 

This was no ordinary assignment. Not a noble to silence, not a court spy to unmask.

 

It was a merchant house.

 

The Sondai.

 

Her brows furrowed as she read. The name alone carried weight. The Sondai were no simple traders. Their branches reached Solhara like veins of silver, their caravans crisscrossing the kingdom with goods from every corner of the continent. At the capital, their headquarters sprawled wide as a fortress—stone walls, armed guards, halls built with the arrogance of a minor court. Even the nobility treated them with respect. Respect that common merchants would never dream of.

 

And now, their new master.

 

Sen.

 

Aelira paused at the name, tracing it with her eyes. Twenty years old. Sharp. Quick to seize the reins after his predecessor’s sudden death by illness. Vaelen’s notes called him brilliant—too brilliant. A merchant’s son who had learned to wield politics as deftly as coin, who turned every risk into gain.

 

Outwardly, everything seemed impeccable. Yet suspicion clung to the margins of the page.

 

Whispers that the Sondai had ties to the Empire.

 

Her jaw tightened.

 

The Empire. Always the Empire. For decades they had clawed at Solhara’s borders—through armies, through spies, through sabotage. And always, they had failed. Solhara had stood unbroken, both its crown and its soil refusing to yield. But their attempts had never stopped.

 

And if the whispers were true—if the Sondai had indeed bent their knee to the Empire’s hand—then this mission was no longer about wealth or politics. It was about betrayal at the heart of the capital.

 

Aelira exhaled, a low sound, almost a sigh. She closed the book, her fingers lingering on the cover.

 

“Looks like I won’t be seeing Kaeyla for a while,” she murmured.

 

The words tasted bitter on her tongue.

 

Her sister’s laughter in the gardens felt suddenly far away, unreachable. And somewhere in the back of her mind, another face flickered too—red hair in the sunlight, golden eyes glinting with mischief, a voice that had asked her once to raise her head and look at the sky.

 

Theon.

 

She should have said goodbye.

 

But the moment was gone. And there was no place for regret where she was going.

 

Her hand clenched into a fist, resting atop the closed book.

 

The sword had been forged. Now it was time to be used.