They told her on the second morning.
Since the night the second wave broke, Helsa had been locked in a stone room under the eastern wall. The wave had come over the cliffs exactly as Selene’s letter had promised, and the kingdom had been waiting for it, and twenty vakhar had died on the eastern cliff path without ever reaching the grain cellar gate. Helsa hadn’t watched any of it. She’d heard it from inside the dark room and wept. The bread the guard brought that night stayed untouched. So did the bread the next morning.
Senna unlocked the door to find her against the far wall, knees pulled to her chest, hair loose and matted across her shoulders. She looked like she’d dropped weight she didn’t have. Her eyes were the grey of winter water, and they didn’t move when Senna came in.
Senna
