Elder Maren's Gift

Sophia's POV

She came to me on the seventh day.

Not to the great hall, not to the council chamber, not to any of the official spaces where my queenship was being performed and tested and gradually established. She came to the east corridor at the hour before dawn, when the castle was in its deepest sleep and the torches had burned low and the stone walls held their cold with the specific, settled quality of things that have been cold for a very long time and have no interest ...