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And the air shifts.

She’s here.

I turn to find her—my mother.

She stands in the doorway, dressed in dark finery, hands folded with an almost regal poise, as if she appeared out of thin air.

Her eyes meet mine—piercing, unblinking—and suddenly, I’m a child again. Small. Uncertain. Desperate for the smallest scrap of approval. My knees threaten to buckle under the weight of her gaze.

She regards me with a disdainful little tilt of her head. Her eyes flick to Damaris and a faint flicker of satisfaction ghosts over her features.

She’s not surprised to see me.Of course she isn’t. She knows me too well. She knew I’d give in, come back.She planned for this.

Silence stretches.

Her lips part, and a cruel smile slices across her face.

“Aria,” she says, my name dragged out like a weapon. Her voice is low, threaded with condescension—soft as silk, and just as cold. “So you’ve finally remembered where you belong.”

My stomach twists, but I force my chin up. I can’t let her see how badly my hands are shaking. This is it. No more running. Roan’s safety depends on this—on me.

Then I hear it—footsteps, soft but deliberate. The creak of wood, the rustle of cloaks.

Enforcers begin to spill into the foyer behind her, one by one. Tallen’s among them—his presence unmistakable. Beside him, a broad-shouldered woman I barely recognize, eyes sharp and cold. And others… too many others. Some I know by name. Some I’ve only seen in passing, faces blurred by memory. Some I don’t recognize at all.

They fan out behind my mother like shadows drawn to blood.

She steps forward slightly, her expression sharpening. “I was beginning to think you’d forgotten your place entirely.”

My throat constricts. Even after all this time, the urge to bow my head, to cast my eyes aside, creeps in.

Stay calm. Remember why you’re here.

I make my voice as steady as I can. “I came to end this.”

She lets out a low, mocking laugh. “You end nothing. If you had any power to speak of, you wouldn’t have slunk back to me like a whipped dog.”

Her words sting—because they’re not entirely wrong. But I don’t flinch.

“Tell me the truth,” she purrs, circling me like a viper toying with its prey. “You didn’t come back out of loyalty.”

She pauses, letting the silence stretch, then adds, “Maelric reported someone was with you. A mortal.”

My breath hitches.

“He said she fought like a soldier,” she continues, voice low and deliberate. “Swordswoman. Fierce. Protective.”

She steps back into view, tilting her head, studying me like I’m some curious puzzle she’s halfway through solving.

“You’re not alone,” she says, soft and certain. “So who is she, Aria?”

I bristle, jaw tightening. “Does it matter why I came back?”

“Doesn’t it?” Her smile widens, all teeth and calculation. “You brought someone into our affairs. Intomyaffairs. Did you fall for some backwater stray, Aria?” She tuts. “You always had a soft spot for humans and strays.”

The words land harder than they should.

I flash—unbidden—back to the old estate gardens, where I’d snuck scraps of meat to a half-starved cat that kept slipping past the guards. I was barely twelve. I thought I was being kind. When my mother found out, she had the creature killed in front of me. She said mercy was a weakness the world would punish. Then she made me bury it.