The room was quiet.
The soft glow of moonlight filtering through the sheer curtains of Princess Elara's dorm at Silver Crest Hall.
The elegant decor of her space—the finely carved wooden furniture, the delicate embroidery on the bedding—felt cold, distant, as if they belonged to someone else entirely.
She sat on the edge of her bed.
Clutching the small amulet that hung around her neck.
Her fingers trembled as they traced the smooth edges of the charm.
The weight of it both comforting and suffocating.
Her mind began to drift.
As it often did in these quiet hours, pulling her into the depths of memories she had tried so desperately to bury.
It was fragmented at first, like the shards of a shattered mirror.
She was seven—no, eight years old—standing in the dimly lit hall of the imperial palace.
The air had been heavy with tension that night.
The kind that even a child could feel.
