Seraphina's Point Of View
"Edward Moore."
The name didn't just land, it detonated something deep within me.
Sharp. Visceral. Unbearably familiar.
My breath snagged in my throat, a barely perceptible hitch that sent a tremor through my chest. I felt the air catch, felt my lungs resist the simple act of breathing. Small as it was, the reaction betrayed me.
And I despised myself for it.
My fingers curled slowly at my sides, nails pressing crescents into my palms as a quiet gasp escaped before I could trap it behind my teeth. The sound hung in the air for a heartbeat too long.
Edward Moore.
My uncle.
The word reverberated through my skull like an old wound suddenly reopened… something I hadn't spoken aloud in years. Something I had deliberately buried beneath layers of carefully constructed indifference. Something that had forfeited its right to exist in my world the moment he had walked away from it.
