The Could Have Been: Penny
The air didn’t smell like damp stone or ancient earth anymore. It smelled of sun-warmed heather and the crisp, clean bite of the Silver Run river. I was sitting on the wide stone balcony of the Ashendor Manor, the afternoon sun painting everything in shades of honey and gold. My fingers were nimble as I worked on the delicate gears of a music box—not a relic from a forgotten age, but a gift my grandmother, Rosariel, had given me for my eighteenth name-day. “You have your grandmother’s hands, Penny,” a soft, melodic voice said from the doorway. I looked up and smiled. Vespera stood there, her midnight-blue skirts rustling against the marble. She didn’t look like a shadow or a ghost. She looked like the aunt I had known my entire life—the brilliant scholar who lived in the tower across th
- Writer
