The room drowned in darkness. It was heavy, breathless and pressing close.
Not the quiet dusk that crept in through windows. But the kind that sealed itself around you, like stone over a grave.
A beautiful girl sat on the edge of her bed, spine straight, the tips of her fingers tightening around a folded sheet of parchment.
A lone candle burned on the desk. Its light trembled against the walls, unsteady, as though it feared to touch the paper in her hands.
Her hair spilled down her back in smooth black waves, deep as midnight with no stars.
The sort of beauty other women tried to buy, but hers had never been bought. It was simply hers.
Her eyes, dark and still, followed the ink across the page. Beneath that calm was a quiet fury, sharp and certain.
'It was from him.'
Marquess Rylan Veyl.
The man who called himself her father.
The serpent-shaped seal lay broken, the wax split clean through. She hadn't bothered with care.
She never did. His letters were never good.
