She Was Supposed to Stay Broken, So I Let Her Think She Had novel · Chapter 4 of 40

Chapter 4: The Story Attached to Silver

Lirien holds up a silver locket and tells Kael it came from his mother, while I stand close enough to see the snapped link hidden in my palm.

'I thought you should have it,' she says. 'Your mother kept it for the woman who would stand beside you.'

Kael looks at the locket. I look at Lirien. She has dressed for innocence in a cream scarf and a pale coat, with her soft brown hair falling loose around her glasses.

The claim is false. The locket carries the river-glass mark, and Lirien knows exactly what that mark can prove.

Kael says my name. I keep walking toward the apothecary door.

Amber gathers around Lirien's head. Market noise drops away. Beneath her spoken kindness, another voice rises in sharp, clear words.

*He cannot ask Cass. He will ask Cass. Smile first. Make it kind.*

The thought hangs before me in full color. I hold it long enough to hear the fear under her plan, then let the market return.

Her smile arrives before her next sentence.

'I know it is small,' she says. 'After today, I thought you might want something from home.'

Kael closes his fingers around the locket. 'Cass gave this to you?'

'I said it came from your mother. Cass told me it belonged with the next Luna.'

'When?'

'After the candidacy review.'

'You never mentioned it.'

'It did not seem important.'

Her voice stays warm. Her thoughts sharpen beneath it.

*Do not say the cabinet. Do not say the archive. If he asks where Cass found it, cry.*

I remember the mark from the founding register, pressed beside a birth-cord seal. The page recorded the child carried from the birth room and the child returned in her place.

Lirien studies my face and mistakes my silence for defeat.

'You look tired,' she says. 'Dov should make you sit down before you make yourself ill. The market is no place for someone in your condition.'

The insult lands cleanly. Anger moves through me, hot and useful. I give it a place behind my teeth and keep walking.

'You are wearing your concern well.'

Her mouth parts. Kael's attention shifts between us.

'I am trying to be kind,' she says.

'You are trying to leave with a story.'

The amber returns around her temples, finer this time, like light caught in wet glass. The sounds around us stretch thin until one thought stands alone beneath her voice.

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