Dawn broke over the Veilwood Estate like a blade of gold slicing through a shroud of grey mist. The fortress stirred to life—guards changing shifts, servants lighting fires, the low murmur of a kingdom waking.
But Evelyn Blackwood had been awake for hours.
She sat at the small writing desk in her private medical suite, the yellowed parchment of her mother’s letter spread out before her. She had read it a dozen times, tracing each faded word with her fingertips, as if she could absorb the truth through her skin.
"The key to breaking the curse is not in your blood alone. It is in the union of two souls—one of Dawn, and one of the Night."
The words burned into her mind.
She had spent her entire life believing she was ordinary. A foster child. A survivor. A surgeon who had clawed her way
