They sat in the small room at the back of Moonhaven that Seraphine reserved for conversations requiring privacy.
It was a plain space, two chairs, a low table, walls lined with the muted amber jars of healing compounds and the quiet instruments of a healer's practice. No windows. The kind of room that did not permit distraction, and Elowen understood from the way Seraphine had chosen it that the high healer was not attempting to soften what needed to be said.
That was something.
"Tell me from the beginning," Elowen said.
Seraphine sat with her hands on her knees, posture straight in the way of someone who has decided that the only remaining dignified option is to face the thing directly. "I first noticed the spiritual markers three months before I gave you the formal diagnosis," she sa
