The letters started coming more often after the rumor speech.
Not official petitions. Not Council memos.
Real letters.
Handwritten. Smudged. Folded badly. Smelling of forests, sea salt, city smoke. Some came in sealed through Riven’s channels, marked with pack crests. Others slipped in with Maris’s medical reports or Alys’s archive requests, tucked between pages like contraband prayers.
Mara stacked them on the kitchen counter in a lopsided pile.
“Fan mail,” El said. “You’re famous.”
“I’m volatile,” I corrected.
“Same thing,” she said. “Open one.”
I did.
The first was from Blacktide.
Not Sal. Someone else. Neat, angular script.
My luna died on your stone, it began. They said it was her honor. That her breaking made us all safer.
Now I hear you say harm. I don’t know yet if that
