Page 93 of Ashen Souls

The entries described how the different magical factions coexisted to keep Aethrya safe. The Houses of Light and Order ran the city and maintained the shields, but they weren't the ones fighting the actual wars.

“The Shadows,” I read, squinting at the cramped handwriting. “They were the assassins. Aethrya's executioners. Whenever a dying realm tried to breach their borders, the Shadows were sent out to slaughter the invaders.”

Harper gave a slow nod. “So the Lights were the politicians. And the Shadows were the butchers.”

“They cooperated, but the notes say they despised each other.” I swallowed hard as I reached the bottom of the page, where the ink was slashed across the paper in angry, jagged strokes. “Until the Shadows rebelled.”

“Read the exact phrasing.”

“The Shadows turned against the Light. For their treason, the entire faction was excised. Purged.”

Harper pushed her prosecco aside, the glass clinking against the wood. “Excised. That's a very polite word for a massacre.”

I stared at the word purged. A cold dread hit me the second I thought of Daeren. There was nothing fictional about him and absolutely nothing about him that screamed submission to Light or Order.

I flipped the page.

More notes followed. Fragments detailing the severing of Aethrya: a final sealing that left Vesper behind as just another ordinary city on a map.

Then I turned one more page.

A sketch filled the center of the paper. It was drawn with obsessive precision, as if the person holding the pen had been terrified of making a mistake.

It was the sigil. The exact mirrored angles that were branded into my wrist.

“Oh. Oh, that’s not great.”

“It’s here,” I whispered.

“Okay, so your bloodline’s scrapbook contains your matching demon tattoo.” Harper’s voice went flat. “That’s… efficient.”

I stared at the drawn lines, desperate for some kind of context. A translation. A warning.

But the margins were empty.

Just three capital letters written beneath the image. The ink was gouged into the paper.

RBA.

Harper tilted her head, squinting at the page. “Either your ancestors invented the least helpful shorthand in history, or they assumed whoever found this would already know what it meant.”

I ran a hand through my hair. “That’s it. There isn't a single footnote. Just the acronym.”

I flipped the page, then the next. I scanned the margins for any stray ink, hoping for even a fragment of context. But the journal didn’t offer any more clues, it just reverted to the same dry genealogies and the slow unraveling of Aethrya.

“It feels intentional.”

I looked up from the page, meeting Harper's gaze.

“They didn’t forget to write it down,” she murmured, her eyes fixed on the acronym. “They chose to leave it out. That’s different.”

I slumped back against the base of the couch, exhausted by the sheer weight of it all. We were inches away from an actual answer, but still locked out.

RBA.

Three letters.

A mark on my wrist.