Malakar's boots barely made a sound against the cold, polished stone floors of the palace as he wandered through the dimly lit hallways. It was well past midnight, and the corridors were eerily silent, with only the flickering torches casting faint glows along the walls. The palace seemed to breathe in the darkness. Its massive pavilions and majestic pillars extend into the darkness of night.
But he didn't give it a second look. Because his mind was preoccupied with a singular thought: Princess Aurelia.
He had to find out if she was the same witch he had met all those centuries ago or if fate was playing some cruel trick on him. The resemblance was too uncanny to ignore—the face, the aura—it had unsettled him in ways he hadn't felt in eons.
