No one answered immediately.
Not because they lacked words, but because any quick reaction would have been inappropriate after what Lyssara had just said.
For more than two hundred years, all of House Vharen had organized itself around the idea that her Continuity was a blessing, a victory over death, an inheritance too precious to be lost.
Daughters, granddaughters, and nieces had grown up knowing that one day they would receive something ancient, something considered greater than themselves.
Some of them had probably been taught to want it since childhood.
And now the woman at the center of that entire tradition was simply saying that she wanted to die.
Kael was still supporting Nerya, keeping one arm around her shoulders until he felt she could remain seated on her own.
The young woman looked exhausted but conscious, and the simple fact that her name was still written on the page as CURRENT SUBJECT gave her a stability she had not possessed only minutes earlier.
