The packhouse had the kind of quiet that hummed underneath celebration. Ashes cooling, floors creaking, whispers tucked into corners. I followed the familiar hall toward my father’s office, rehearsing the words I would throw down like stones. But I didn’t find him. I found my mother. Daisy Maddox looked up from a stack of papers in the Luna office, a thin smile pulling at her mouth before it broke and slid into worry. The room smelled like tea and wax and the herbs she hung to dry by the window. The old map of Bloodhowl lands spread across her desk, edges frayed from too many fingers.
“Liora,” she said, her voice soft with a kind of relief that made my throat tight.
“Mom,” I whispered. She stood but didn’t rush to me. She didn’t crush me in the kind of embrace that would have felt like a
