Chapter 8
Elara’s POV
The wind howled against the shutters of Master Daren’s apothecary, rattling them like bones. It was a storm without rain, just a fierce winter wind tearing through the valley as though warning the world that change was coming. I pressed my cloak tighter around my shoulders, my fingers brushing the hollow place at my throat where the pendant used to rest.
It had been three days since the break-in. Three days since I’d awakened to find my tiny house turned upside down, furniture overturned, herbs scattered like confetti of despair, and the pendant—the one I hadn’t even known I owned until waking with it in my hand—vanished.
And now the scholar was back.
He arrived that morning with urgency in his step, his gray robes flapping around his thin frame, his satchel heav
