Chapter 23
Elara’s POV
The palace had grown suffocating.
Days blurred into lessons on etiquette and weapons, into court sessions where whispers scratched at my back like claws. But no matter how tightly I tied my laces or how gracefully I bowed, I could not shake the sense that Mireille’s eyes followed me everywhere—always watchful, always calculating.
It was near midnight when my suspicion snapped into action.
I had been walking along the east wing, unable to sleep, when I saw her. Mireille, in her velvet gown the color of spilled wine, her face shadowed by a hood, slipping out a side door. She moved with the kind of stealth only the guilty wore.
I should have turned away. I should have let the guards handle it. But curiosity—no, instinct—dug its claws into me.
I followed.
The pal
