Seven years ago, when the court of Basilica was still rising from the ruins left by Arse's betrayal, Kalmir's death, and the exile of the first queen, Luana made a decision that seemed as solid as the granite walls of the White Palace. That winter, whose arrival had been surprisingly calm, she abandoned the comfort of her new life in the residence of the second queen with a determination she then believed to be unshakable.
Her departure was marked by a dense, almost reverent silence, as if the very season unfolding around her understood the gravity of the moment. There were no pompous farewells or tears. Only the soft sound of her footsteps echoing through empty corridors, accompanied by the sense that something immense was about to be left behind—something that, with time, would prove more important than she had thought back then.
