Mary Ann’s POV
The photograph remained on my desk long after the afternoon meeting ended.
I had moved every report around it.
Nightveil reconstruction budgets sat to the left. Ironclaw’s damaged village assessment rested beneath them. Mooncrest’s proposed border patrol schedule waited unopened near the lamp.
Yet my eyes kept returning to the old academy photograph.
I looked younger in it.
My cheeks were rounder, my hair pulled into the neat braid my mother preferred, and three thick books were held tightly against my chest. I remembered that day. We had just completed a leadership examination, and I had earned the highest score in the class.
No one congratulated me.
Instead, someone had pushed me into the courtyard fountain.
My dress had dried before the photograph was taken, but
