Aelara stared at the marks.
She had looked at this wall yesterday. She had stood right here with a lamp and read what she could and called Seraphine over and felt satisfied that she understood what the room was for. She had not looked at this section. Or she had looked at it and her eyes had moved on because nothing in her had been ready to see what was written there.
Now she could not look away.
The marks were not her name in any language she knew. They did not spell anything. They were a pattern, a specific cluster of marks that functioned like a name the way a fingerprint functioned like an identity. Completely specific. Completely her. And she had no idea how she knew that except that she did, the same way you knew your own reflection even in bad light.
Seraphine was standing beside her and not speaking, which Aelara was grateful for.
She needed a minute.
