"We may have a discrepancy."
That was all Kaleb had written.
But Kael had read it three times in a row.
Now he stood in his brother-in-law's office, arms crossed, jaw tight, watching the lines deepen in Kaleb's forehead as he turned the screen toward him.
"She has no medical file," Kaleb said simply.
"None?"
"Nothing before the age of one. No hospital record, no city registry, no immunization log, no DNA origin scan."
"That's not possible," Kael snapped. "Everyone's chipped at birth."
"Exactly." Kaleb leaned back. "The earliest entry is her official adoption by Maerys Tallen. But even that document is scanned in manually — no digital signature, no original clerk code."
"You think she's fabricated?"
Kaleb was quiet for a beat.
"No," he said. "But someone erased her."
Meanwhile, I was sitting cross-legged in Elion's room, listening to him sort his glow-in-the-dark star stickers into piles based on personality.
"These ones are grumpy," he explained solemnly. "They go above my bed. The brave ones go near the door. They protect me."
I smiled, adjusting one of the bent corners. "And where do the sleepy ones go?"
"Near the ceiling fan. They get dizzy and fall asleep."
It was absurd. It was beautiful.
"I'm glad you're here," he said after a pause, quieter. "You don't talk to me like I'm small."
"You're not," I said. "You're just young. That's different."
He grinned, and then—"Do you know what Grandma used to say?"
I looked up. "What?"
"She used to say we're all born with starlight in our bones, but some people shine louder."
My blood ran cold.
"What?"
"That's what she said. Only to me. One night when I was scared. She whispered it in my ear. Daddy says he never told anyone that."
I stared at him.
That was something my mother used to say.
Maerys had whispered it to me when I was young — claimed it was a line from a song.
But it wasn't.
It was a phrase from a Witchborn ritual — a mantra passed from mother to child during early spell recognition.
It was supposed to be extinct.
And yet Elion knew it.
Because his grandmother had known it.
And if she knew…
That meant she'd known my real mother.
The Queen hadn't just died for me.
She may have died because of me.
That evening, I wandered the halls again.
I wasn't looking for the book. I wasn't ready.
But something pulled me toward the east gallery, where the portraits of the royal line hung in luminous, enchanted frames. Most people passed them without thought.
But I stopped before one of the earlier queens — a dark-haired woman with eyes like mine. Her hands rested on a small child's shoulders.
The painting shimmered faintly — magical paint preservation, probably.
But just beneath her fingers, at the edge of her sleeve, I saw it.
A pendant.
My pendant.
"Restricted area."
I spun, pulse jolting.
Kael stood in the archway, dressed in slate-grey, half-shadowed by the light from the hall.
"I didn't see a sign," I said, forcing my voice calm.
"You passed one."
I shrugged. "Then I guess I was looking at the stars."
His expression didn't change.
But his eyes moved — not to the painting, not to my face.
To my chest.
To the faint outline of the pendant beneath my blouse.
I swallowed hard.
"You like wandering," he said.
"I like breathing," I replied.
His head tilted. "And do you feel trapped here?"
"I feel… watched."
"I am watching."
The silence between us thickened.
I should've looked away.
But I didn't.
And neither did he.
He stepped closer. Slow. Controlled. A predator that didn't need to chase.
"Who are you really, Serenya?"
I felt every hair on my body rise.
"I told you. Just a girl with good grades and a stubborn kid attached to her hip."
He didn't blink.
"Where were you born?"
"Vareth," I lied easily. "Like half the country."
"Do you have family?"
I smiled, soft. "None that remember me."
For a moment, just a breath, I thought he might say something real.
But then—
"Stay out of the archives," he said. "For your own safety."
He turned, coat brushing past me like a closing door.
In Kaleb's office, hours later, a new scan came in.
A partial match.
Serenya's blood marker — buried deep, only detectable with non-citizen filtering — matched the Veyr line.
A name that hadn't been spoken in ten years.
A bloodline declared extinct.
Kaleb stared at the screen in stunned silence.
He did not send the file to Kael.
Not yet.