SKYE'S POV
The summer arrived not with a whisper, but with a roar of color.
The basalt slopes that had been scarred by the Conclave’s fires were no longer black. They were carpeted in a riot of alpine clover, fireweed, and deep, stubborn mountain daisies. The air was thick, no longer with the metallic tang of blood and ozone, but with the heavy, sweet scent of ripening berries and the hum of thousands of bees working the nectar-heavy fields.
Life in Nighthaven had settled into a rhythm that felt almost impossible, given the winters of our past.
I sat on the balcony of the eastern wing, watching the sun dip behind the peaks, painting the glacier ice in shades of bruised plum and burning copper. The heavy, formal life of a Queen had become something entirely different than what the archi
