#Chapter 28: Broken Bonds

(Elara’s POV) The Sterling estate had a silence I used to mistake for peace. Especially in winter, when the halls muffled every sound—footsteps, hushed arguments, even the scratch of the pen from the study. It took me years to realize it wasn’t peace at all. Just the kind of silence that keeps you small, unnoticed, unnecessary. I hated that I knew how to move through it so well. I was sixteen the first time I stepped into Violet’s wing without permission. She’d left in a rush—some last-minute council summons, too many elders to charm, too many wolves with coin and memory to placate. The servants whispered that she’d be gone until spring. Renovation season, they called it, as if silk sheets and rose-scented washbasins needed reordering more than the women who used them. Her rooms were warm. Lavish, but not in the way I expected. No gold leaf. No oil portraits of herself. Just stacks of mismatched books, velvet that looked worn in, and an old throw blanket that didn’t match a s