Isla’s POV
I did not go looking for the photos.
That was the cruelest part of it all.
I was sitting alone in the small sitting room off the east wing, the one with the narrow window that overlooked the training fields. Snow drifted down slowly outside, soft and quiet, like the world was trying to be gentle even as everything inside me threatened to split open. I had been trying to distract myself. Reading. Breathing. Pretending the storm outside Silverfang’s gates was not clawing closer by the hour.
My phone vibrated.
Once.
Twice.
A notification from a platform I barely used anymore. Someone had tagged Cassandra.
I should have ignored it.
I knew better.
But curiosity is a dangerous thing when your heart is already bleeding.
I opened it.
The screen filled instantly.
Cassandra.
