Seren
The children’s laughter drifted across the courtyard, bright and careless in the warm afternoon sun. I leaned back against the stone railing, watching them chase each other between the garden beds. Duncan and Julian stood a few steps away, pretending not to notice that the boys were very obviously winning their game.
Five years ago, this place had been a battlefield. Now, as I stood here and watched my family, it smelled of roses.
Historians were already arguing about what to call it all. The Elder Archivists at the palace preferred the Mikhail Rebellion, something neat and politically precise that placed the blame exactly where it belonged. The vampire archives leaned toward the Black Vein War, after the blood magic that had bound the hybrids together.
The bards, of course, had
