Myrelion broke the seal with care.
Inside was a handwritten letter.
> To Myrelion Aethros,
If you're reading this… then I've already failed to protect you.
I was sent by your father, Lord Corwin Brackwood. Not to control you. Not to bind you. But to protect you, from the shadows that haunt your bloodline. He couldn't acknowledge you—but he couldn't abandon you either.
You were never a mistake, Myrelion. You are a child born with purpose.
I taught you what I could—how to survive, how to fight, how to hide your heart when the world comes for it.
But if you truly want to honor me, then do one thing:
Do not chase vengeance.
Do not let your soul become what I tried to save you from.
Live. Laugh. Love. Build something from the ashes you were born into.
…Even if it's just a quiet life.
I left you a few things in the chest beneath the floorboards. They're yours now. Wear them not for war, but as armor for the soul.
Tears slid down Myrelion's face.
He opened the hidden chest. Inside were neatly folded black assassin combat clothes—stitched with lightweight leather and elven silk, reinforced with runic thread. Alongside them lay a finely forged elven shortsword engraved with his name and a simple white mask with a single black line across it.
His reflection stared back at him in the blade—tired, hollow, lost.
He took a deep breath and whispered, "Thank you… Kaelira."
Then, under the moonlight, he burned the assassin's note.
He would carry her memory.
But not her killers' legacy.