Ayla
The records wing was always cold.
Not the biting cold of snow or the damp chill that seeped into the halls after a storm but something different. Something that clung to the stone and pressed between your bones like time itself had settled in and refused to leave. I pulled my shawl tighter around my shoulders as I stepped through the corridor, counting the seconds between torch sconces just for something to do.
I wasn’t supposed to be here again today. I wasn’t supposed to be anywhere in particular. No one had told me what I should or shouldn’t be doing, not since the heat passed and Damien stopped ordering my movements like a soldier under command. But the keep was suffocating when it was quiet. The staff barely spoke to me. The guards pretended not to see me. And if I spent anoth
