AISLYNRevenge is not an impulse.

It is a discipline.

I remind myself of that as I sit alone in the council archive, lantern turned low, scrolls spread carefully across the table like pieces of a body waiting to be reassembled. This is not rage. This is not grief. This is intention sharpened into action.

Ashlyn did not rise the way she claimed she did. Power never appears from nothing. It is taken, borrowed, stolen, or manipulated into place. And in her case, it was stolen. If she ruled for as ...