The doors opened with a slow creak of age-old hinges, and Veyra stepped into the room. She was tall for her age—eighteen, perhaps nineteen—with long midnight-brown hair that shimmered faintly with an undertone of red. Her eyes, once dull with sickness, now glimmered faintly. The traces of corruption that once plagued her body had vanished thanks to Asher's healing, but her posture still held the hesitation of someone long treated like a fragile vase.
She wore a long, plum-colored robe patterned with branches and veins—symbolic of her newly awakened skill: Bloodroot of Crimson Bloom. A hybrid of Wood and Blood elements, rare and deeply incompatible with the Varnius family's long-standing legacy of pure Blood Laws.
As she stood before them, clearly uncertain, Asher smiled and stepped forward.
"Veyra," he said, voice smooth and warm, "do you know the story of a caged songbird?"
She blinked, confused. "No…"
