The words carved into the cold basalt floor didn't just rattle Elena; they physically upended the very ground she stood on.
I told you I would wait for you at the harbor, Queen.
Elena dropped the heavy iron wrench. It clattered against the stone, a sharp, ugly sound that echoed off the circular walls of the hidden vault. She knelt, her knees sinking into the centuries of dust coating the floor, her fingers trembling as she reached down toward the tarnished silver signet ring.
Her mind flipped backward, tracing the seven intense, quiet years she had spent hidden beneath the suffocating canopy of the Whispering Woods. She remembered the agonizing, burning heat of her pregnancy awakening the ancient royal bloodline in her veins. But more than anything, she remembered him. Her Master. The g
