Ember woke with the certainty that something inside her had gone missing.
It wasn’t the sharp panic she’d expected—not the scream or the sob or the frantic search for what had been torn away. It was quieter than that. A weightless absence. Like stepping where the floor should be and finding nothing there at all.
For a long moment, she lay still, staring at the ceiling of her room as moonlight thinned into gray dawn. Her chest rose and fell, but the rhythm felt wrong, like she was borrowing air instead of owning it.
Maelis.
The name surfaced without effort, without pain. That scared her more than anything.
Usually, thinking her name hurt. Usually, it burned, sent a spike of ache straight through her ribs, made Vespera pace restlessly beneath her skin. But now there was only a dull pres
