The moonlight cast pale streaks across the Shadow Wing's high-vaulted windows, but Kara wasn’t truly present in the moment. She sat quietly by the balcony, a cup of untouched tea in her hand, her gaze distant.
Her thoughts wandered—not to the future or the child forming within her—but to a memory buried beneath layers of time. One she had never spoken about. One that had never truly left her.
The night Vaelith saved her from her parents.
Not the part everyone saw.
But everything that happened afterward
She had been trembling when he first carried her across the threshold of his realm. Her limbs were limp with exhaustion, her spirit worn thin from the violent confrontation with Anaxia and Prima. Even then, when he appeared out of the shadows like a god descending from myth, she hadn’t
