The healing mark catches the moonlight wrong, too pink at the edges, too new, and once I see it I can't unsee it.
"That mark," I say slowly, my voice barely above a whisper. "You said the rebellion branded you decades ago."
My aunt's expression doesn't change, but something behind her eyes goes very still, the particular stillness of someone recalculating a plan in real time.
"Decades ago," she agrees. "This is a second one. Fresher wounds heal faster when there's urgency behind them."
"Convenient," Queen Maerwen says dryly, not moving from where she stands near the shattered window, gold ring still resting in her open palm. "An urgent need to reopen old scars, precisely when your niece happens to be holding the one artifact capable of proving whose blood actually runs the fifth house.
