The wind howled over the ramparts of Orynth, wild and cold, dragging with it the scent of steel, old stone, and coming war. Somewhere in the distance, a smith hammered out final orders. Somewhere else, soldiers laughed too loudly to hide the fear in their bones. The city didn’t sleep, not tonight. Not before battle.

Asterin Blackbeak didn’t sleep either.

Her boots echoed through the narrow corridors of the upper keep, her braid snapping like a whip in the wind behind her. The moon had barely risen, but she’d already patrolled the northern wall, checked in with the Thirteen, and slipped a dagger into the boot of a young soldier too green to remember his own weapons.

She moved like shadow and storm, armor black as her blood, cloak dusting the floor like fallen ash.

She hated this place.

Too much stone. Too much polished fae arrogance baked into every wall. But she was here—for Manon, for the witches who had no voice, and for the dream of a future none of them had dared believe in until now.

And maybe—just maybe—for herself.

She was rounding the far side of the inner courtyard when the child stumbled into view.

A girl—ten, perhaps eleven—dashing down the hallway with a messenger’s satchel bouncing against her side. Human by the look of her, or close enough. Mousy brown curls, small limbs, smudged cheeks. A streak of urgency in her step.

Then—a trip. A soldier’s armored shoulder clipped her without so much as a grunt of apology. The girl went down hard.

Asterin was moving before she thought.

The soldier didn’t even glance back. She snarled quietly under her breath, forcing her hands to stay at her sides instead of reaching for a blade.

The child pushed herself up, one hand clutching her nose, the other bracing her against the wall. Blood dripped between her fingers.

Blue.

Asterin stopped mid-step.

The scent hit her a heartbeat later.

Faint—but unmistakable. Earth and iron and something colder, something ancient and sacred.

Witch.

Blackbeak.

Her blood.

The girl’s breathing quickened. Panic painted her too-small features. She looked at Asterin like prey—like a secret that had just been cracked wide open.

Asterin knelt slowly. Her fingers hovered inches from the girl’s wrist. “It’s just a bloody nose, girl,” she said, voice rougher than she meant. “You took a knock, that’s all.”

But the child flinched.

And that scent—

Witchling.

No. That was impossible.

The girl looked nothing like her. Not really.

Except the chin. And the eyes. The fire in them that was trying so hard to burn away fear.

Asterin’s heart didn’t beat faster. It stopped.

Not just at the smell, the color of the blood now staining the girl’s skin—but at the knowing in her bones. The same way a mother knows her child’s cry even in a crowd. A feeling she’d buried so deep it had taken years to silence. The kind of grief that never really dies.

Her voice broke as she whispered, “What’s your name?”

The girl didn’t answer.

Asterin wasn’t sure she heard her. She just stood there, trying to swallow the lump rising in her throat, the pain that came from some long-dead, rotted corner of her soul. She tried to breathe around it. Around the blue blood, and the too-familiar scent, and the years of mourning she’d told herself had been a lie.

But this?

This was real.

Her witchling had died. She’d held her in her arms, limp and still, her tiny heart long since stopped.

And yet—

This girl smelled like her.

Looked a little like her.

Felt like her.

“Does anyone know?” she asked quietly.

The girl just shook her head.

Of course not. They’d hidden her—whoever they were. Maybe to protect her. Maybe out of shame.

Asterin glanced around. The corridor was empty now. Silent.

She should take the girl to Manon.

But she didn’t move.

And Asterin Blackbeak—general, warrior, death-bringer—watched her do it with shaking hands.

The child looked up once more. And in her eyes, Asterin saw the past. Saw what had been stolen from her.

But also, maybe, what could still be saved.