The return was harder.

  Lysara moved more carefully now, satchel lighter but now replaced with potions wrapped in cloth. The smell of crushed herbs and mana clung faintly to her sleeves.

  She was halfway up the second floor when voices drifted too close.

  Boots. Measured. Awake.

  Lysara froze.

  The patrol rounded the corner sooner than expected, lantern light spilling across the stairwell in a slow sweep. She stepped back without sound and slipped into the nearest doorway, heart pounding just once before she forced it still.

  A bathroom.

  She closed the door gently and pressed herself into the shadows beside the sinks, breath shallow. The light outside lingered, then moved on. Boots faded. Conversation resumed, distant and uninterested.

  Only then did she exhale.

  She did not leave at once.

  Instead, she set her satchel on the counter and worked by touch. Dye first. She mixed it quickly, too quickly, fingers steady but tired. The die smelled of too much chroma and to faint of herb. Adding the tincture created a too strong astringent scent.

  She hesitated—then applied it anyway.

  The potion came next. She drank it in small, controlled swallows. Bitter. Thicker than usual. The heat behind her eyes flared, then settled.

  It would last.

  Longer than planned, perhaps, but it would last.

  She made it back to the dorm without incident, slipped into bed, and let the darkness take her before she could think too hard about how close it had been.

  Sleep did not come as rest.

  It came as slipping.

  She was small again—small enough that her feet didn’t quite touch the floor as she sat on the stool. Her mother stood behind her, close but careful, hands already stained a weird from the dye.

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  “Be still,” her mother said gently.

  Lysara stilled.

  The room smelled of crushed leaves and boiled bark, sharp and familiar. Her mother worked methodically, separating strands, coating them fully. No gaps. No uneven patches. The dye soaked in slowly, darkening hair that caught the light too easily when left alone.

  “We don’t rush this,” her mother said. “Rushing is how people notice.”

  “I don’t want it anymore,” Lysara whispered.

  Her mother’s hands paused—not for long, just long enough to acknowledge the words.

  “I know,” she said. “But Shae blood doesn’t get to want.”

  The mirror was turned to the wall. It always was.

  Her mother leaned closer, voice low—calm in the way of someone who had practiced calm until it no longer faltered.

  “They notice the white-silver hair,” she said, fingers moving gently. “The soft rose undertone that never quite goes away.”

  Her hands paused only long enough to separate another strand.

  “Then they’ll look closer at your eyes.”

  Her voice tightened.

  “Eyes that shine too brightly. Not reflecting light—holding it.”

  A breath. Controlled.

  “And your skin. Opalescent. Pale, with that faint pearly glow they pretend not to notice at first.”

  Bitterness crept in despite her care.

  “They’ll call it a beautiful masterpiece,” she went on. “A gem that needs to be collected. Rare.”

  Her fingers pressed more firmly as she worked.

  “A gem that needs to be caged up and shown off.”

  The word was sharp now.

  “They’ll keep you far from the forest,” she said. “Locked away from it. From the way nature feels when it’s alive and answering.”

  The room shifted... Stone replaced moss covered ground.

  The forest pressed in suddenly wet earth, roots, breathless dark. Hands caught at Lysara’s Sleeves — not rough, not violent. Curious.

  “Wait,” a voice said. “Look at her eyes. She’s Shae.”

  Another voice, sharp with interest. “Velkara’s nobles would pay good coin.”

  The word snapped everything into focus.

  Her heart slammed once. Hard.

  “Let us take her deeper into the forest. A thorough check.”

  The one holding her snickered, the sound snapping her out of panic.

  She twisted free before they could decide. Branches tore at her skin as she ran, lungs burning, fear tight and suffocating.

  Her senses sharpened.

  The forest mana closed around her — warm, heavy.

  The world slowed.

  The path revealed itself like a guiding hand. Crouch low. Veer left. Duck beneath the moabo vine. Right — jump.

  Behind her, the voices faded.

  She did not stop running.

  The dream folded back in on itself.

  Her mother knelt in front of her now, close enough that Lysara could feel her warmth. She lifted Lysara’s chin, angling her face away from the light, and pushed the glasses into place with practiced care.

  “Look down,” she said.

  “I am,” Lysara whispered.

  “Promise me,” her mother said, and this time the calm cracked just slightly at the edges. “Promise you won’t give yourself away.”

  “I promise.”

  Her mother brushed her thumb beneath Lysara’s eye, wiping away dye, or sweat, or something that felt too much like a tear.

  Lysara woke with her heart racing and her body heavy, exhaustion clinging to her like residue she couldn’t wash away. The rules were already there, settled deep. They always had been.

  She lay still until her breathing slowed, until the instinct to check her hair and her eyes faded back into habit.

  Hiding wasn’t fear, it was inheritance.

  She slept for barely three hours before the morning bell pulled her back into the world.

  The day passed in fragments.