He didn't make it to the eastern tower.
Caldan was halfway across the upper gallery — moving fast, jaw set, his burned hand tucked against his ribs like a wounded animal protecting a broken limb — when a voice stopped him cold.
"You look terrible."
Viera.
His sister stood in the alcove between two dead kings' portraits, half-swallowed by shadow, her black hair loose around her shoulders and her black eyes watching him with the patient, unblinking focus of something that hunted by moonlight. She wore no jewelry. No crown. Just a plain dark gown that made her look less like a princess and more like a ghost that had forgotten to leave.
She held a piece of parchment in one hand. In the other, a stick of charcoal.
She'd been drawing. On the wall.
