The name Isella Aldenar used to be a phantom that haunted the periphery of Verona's previous life. Back then, in that bleak, discarded life, Isella was less a woman and more a force of nature.
To the old Verona, Isella was the woman who didn't waste her breath on those she deemed disposable. They used to call her the "Hurricane in Silk," a title that, frankly, felt like a bit of an understatement. If Elric was the iron shield of the North, Isella was undoubtedly the hidden dagger, dipped in something sweet but paralyzingly toxic.
Verona leaned against the stone balustrade of the main estate steps, her lungs still burning with Ardine's latest training session. There was grit in her teeth and the fine, grey dust of the sparring ring coating her boots, hardly the picture of a refined Duchess. She'd been daydreaming when the air in the courtyard began to hum. It wasn't a pleasant sound. It was the frantic, ionized buzz that preceded a magical storm.
