I hadn't expected Ashford territory to feel this familiar.
Not the palace itself. We stayed far from that, slipping along the capital’s edge with me hidden under a merchant’s cloak and hood Kaelan pulled out like it was nothing. But the roads, the buildings, the air thick with ambition and old money it all felt too much like Hartwell on its best days, only bigger, colder, and so much worse.
"You've gone quiet," Kaelan said, guiding our horses down a narrow side street toward the archive building, a squat grey structure tucked between grander ones like an afterthought.
"This is where you grew up," I said. "Being told exactly what I was, before I ever set foot here." I glanced at him. "I don't love how familiar that makes it feel."
Something flickered across his face new defensiveness. U
