Marina told Cian about their father that afternoon.

She found him at the western edge of the Grove, sitting on a fallen tree with his shadow magic running quietly around him, still recalibrating to freedom the way people did when they had been contained for a long time. He was watching the boundary stones with the specific attention of someone learning to believe that the thing keeping them safe was not also keeping them trapped.

She sat beside him and told him plainly.

Their father's name. Silvermoon origin. The deliberate pairing. The real connection underneath the engineering. The grave in the eastern cemetery.

Cian listened without interrupting, which was not...