The wooden bowl clattered against the table, sending broth sloshing over the rim. Yara barely blinked at the spill.
Her gaze was locked on the serving girl.
Only—it wasn't a girl at all.
"Hey, Yarina," the figure said with mock delight, voice warm as winter steel.
Rolen.
He stood straight and unapologetic, dressed in an apron tied hastily over a dirty tunic that reeked of salt, sweat, and old blood.
The disguise might've fooled anyone else—loose curls tucked beneath a kerchief, cheeks smudged like a scullery maid's—but those boots were unmistakable. Worn black leather, scuffed from cliff ridges. Smuggler boots. And the curve of a blade winked at her from his hip.
What the actual fuck?
"Funny seeing you alive," he added, voice light but knife-edged.
Yara froze. Her spoon, halfway to her mouth, hovered midair. She didn't speak. She couldn't—not with the memory slamming into her chest like a hammer to a locked box.
