The secret chamber was silent, save for the crystalline weeping of the Stone. She looked only at it.
It was no longer a jagged, violet shard of stolen potential. In her hand, the core had smoothed into a perfect, glowing diamond. It hummed a low, ancient song that resonated with the marrow of her bones, a frequency she hadn't heard since the day she stepped off the Zenith.
She wasn't Verona Vernhardt, the neglected daughter of a failing house.
She was the Weaver.
She stepped out of the basement. She didn't hide. She didn't stay in the shadows of the servant tunnels. As she reached the grand hallway of the main gallery, the air around her began to shimmer with a kinetic heat that distorted the very light of the oil lamps.
"Verona!"
