The garden was small, nestled between two white stone buildings where the mountain drank the first rays of the morning sun. Emery had known nothing of its existence until Sera had guided her there, had known not what lay hidden within its walls.
A dozen faces turned to her as she crossed the threshold.
All of them were of the Velanthri, women mostly, their silver hair catching the light as if threads of moonlight had been spun into their tresses. A few children clung to their mothers' skirts, wide-eyed and silent. One aged man hobbled with a cane, his hair as white as winter frost, his eyes the pale blue of a frozen sky.
They looked upon her as she had looked upon the red feather in her prison cell. With hope. With awe. With the breathless reverence of a miracle.
"You have come," one of the women whispered in Veel, the tongue of the Velanthri. It was the same woman from the street—the one who had gripped her hands and wept. "We feared you would not."
