#Chapter 48 – Unwelcome Tribute

Damon The hairpin burned a hole in the corner of my desk. It sat in the open, harmless in appearance—silver, slender, shaped like a crescent moon—but it may as well have been a dagger. It wasn’t just a trinket. It was Natalie’s. I remembered the curve of it in her hair the night she died. And now I’d seen it again, gleaming in Elena’s braid the night we met. I didn’t want to believe it was hers at first. But denial never served Kings. I turned the pin over again, slowly, letting the weight of memory settle like sediment in my chest. I hadn’t touched that grief in years. And yet… Why would Elena wear this? And worse—how did she get it? “Send her in,” I said, not looking up. Ronan opened the door, and the servant girl shuffled in behind him. She was young—maybe sixteen—with trembling fingers clasped in front of her apron and eyes too wide. “Sit,” I said. She nearly tripped doing so. I didn’t speak right away. Let the silence do the heavy lifting. Her hands clen