[POV: Ezekiel]
He opened it after Ilhera left.
Not out of impulse.
Not fear.
But because the light from the key wouldn't dim until he did.
---
The letter was folded six times.
Each fold tucked with the precision of a ritual, not a message.
The wax was the color of dried wine. Pressed not with a family crest—but with a simple circle crossed once through the center.
Not a sigil.
A glyph.
One he had seen once, in a dream he didn't remember.
Until now.
---
He broke the seal.
Unfolded the parchment slowly.
The script was hers. Flowing. Sharp-edged. Clean.
But something in the ink moved faintly, as if the words resisted being read too quickly.
He didn't blink.
He read.
---
> "If you are reading this, then you have already chosen to move."
> "Good. They would have buried you in velvet, called it mercy, and crowned your corpse in silence."
> "You are not cursed. You are not gifted. You are not blessed."
> "You are a path the world forgot it feared."
---
His fingers trembled.
He didn't know why.
It wasn't fear.
It wasn't grief.
It was something colder.
Something like recognition.
---
> "You must listen now, before you begin."
"Because once you begin, nothing will wait for you."
> "The key will not open every door. But it will open the right one. Once."
> "The dagger will not kill your enemies. It will keep your tongue safe. Do not unsheathe it unless you mean to lose something."
> "And the girl—Ilhera—is not yours to trust. But she is not theirs, either."
> "She will test you. Let her."
---
That line struck him.
He read it again.
And again.
She knew Ilhera's name.
That should have been impossible.
---
> "There is something in you now. It does not belong to you. But it is not foreign either."
> "It will demand shape. Words. Meaning. It will try to make you speak."
> "Don't."
> "Not until you know whose silence you carry."
---
The page quivered faintly in his hands.
Not from wind.
From something else.
Something beneath the ink.
He turned to the final line.
There was no signature.
Just seven words.
Written in deeper, darker ink.
Not hers.
But familiar all the same.
> "They will try to name you."
"Be something they cannot say."
---
He folded the letter once more.
Not in panic.
Not in reverence.
Just with care.
The key stopped glowing.
The dagger stilled.
And Ezekiel closed his eyes.
---
Outside, the guards shifted uneasily at the soundless hum beneath the stone.
They would not remember hearing it.
But they would dream of it.
---
[POV: Ilhera – In the Lower Passage]
She waited with her back to the wall, arms folded, watching nothing.
But her fingers twitched.
She knew he'd opened it.
She didn't know how she knew.
But she did.
And somewhere, behind her thoughts, the shard he'd taken pulsed once.
Only once.
But that was enough.
---
> "So," she whispered to the dark,
"your mother was one of them."