Chapter 16
Elara’s POV
The night was heavy with silence. Not the kind that soothed, but the kind that pressed against your ears, making you hear your own heartbeat louder than anything else. The corridors of the palace usually hummed faintly—guards shifting their armor, torches crackling, distant footsteps echoing. Tonight, there was nothing.
I sat in my chamber with the lamp burning low, tracing the edges of a book I had borrowed from the palace library. My lessons in court etiquette and combat had drained me, but sleep refused to come. Every shadow seemed longer than it should be. Perhaps it was paranoia, perhaps not.
Something shifted. A whisper of air, soft as a breath.
I froze.
The curtains fluttered—yet the windows were shut tight.
I turned, pulse quickening. And then I saw hi
