Elena’s POV

The courtyard settled into a deceptive calm after the ancestral ceremony, the kind of quiet that might have felt peaceful to an outsider but only made the unease in my chest grow heavier, because nothing in this house had ever existed without purpose, and certainly not silence.

As I walked along the bluestone path, my thoughts still tangled in everything that had just happened, my heel caught slightly against the uneven edge, and before I could steady myself, my balance tipped ...