Aria
She cut me off with a look as old as the hearth.
“You never do. Magic that wakes is most dangerous when it is angry and untrained. We hide it. We learn it. We control it. Or we burn.”
“Burn?” The word felt like a promise and a threat both.
She nodded once, then stood, measuring me with a mother’s steady gaze.
“We hide. We learn. We become small shadows until we grow.”
We left Serena piled on her pallet, breathing, mumbling curses at the light. Mara had gone to fetch a poultice and a story to mask the truth; my mother had told her it was a bump, that an old stone and a tired woman made for unfortunate accidents. In the meantime, we swept and scrubbed until the kitchen smelled only of bread and rosemary again, as if the night’s violence had been a dream.
When I finally washed m
