It happened on an ordinary evening, which was, Jasmine would later realize, precisely the point. She had let her guard down exactly enough, in the softness of a season of small peace, for something to slip through the gap none of them had thought to watch closely enough.

Hardin had come for his second supervised visit, exactly as the Council terms required, arriving with a single guard and none of the arrogance that had once defined every interaction between them. He sat with Elara in the fortress garden while Jasmine watched from a careful distance, still testing the shape of the trust she'd agreed to extend him one earned day...