#Chapter 121: The King's Family

Ember Kaine finds me in the training yard the next morning, waiting at the edge of the packed earth while I run through sword forms to work out the stiffness from four days of riding. The familiar rhythm of each strike and pivot helps quiet my mind, lets me focus on muscle memory instead of the tangle of worries I've been carrying since we arrived at the palace. He waits until I finish the sequence before speaking, his expression caught between careful and hopeful in a way that makes me lower the blade before he even says a word. He tells me he talked to his father last night about Clara—that Alexander wants to meet her properly, as his granddaughter, not just some child Kaine brought home from the border. Lila asked to be there too, if we will allow it. That surprises me more than the King's request. Blood is simple; Lila is not. She is Ines's daughter, Kaine's half-sister, and one of the reasons the Queen is no longer in this palace. The words could be cold, could carry the weigh