Dorian had always known that bracelet mattered. He ensured it mattered.
That day, that day she breathed her last… after the rain had finally eased and the world smelled of wet earth and something disturbingly final, he had arrived too late. He was not there with her as she died, as he wished for.
And more importantly… The ring was gone.
The signet ring he had placed on her finger, the one that marked her as his, that declared to the world she belonged to him… That ring had vanished without a trace.
Only the bracelet remained, where she breathed her last. He picked it up wondering how it got there. And yet… it had felt wrong in his hands. Heavy with something he couldn't name.
He felt her in that bracelet. So he had taken it.
And he had gone to the seer.
He could still remember her voice—low, layered, as though it echoed from somewhere beyond the present.
