Hope
Hope did not notice the absence immediately.
The morning moved the way mornings always did inside the palace. Servants crossed the courtyard carrying baskets of linen. Guards rotated posts with measured precision. The air held the faint scent of frost melting beneath thin sunlight. She walked through it all with the same deliberate composure she had learned to maintain since childhood.
She spoke with one of the seamstresses about winter mending. She reviewed supply tallies from the inner kitchens. She listened to Joy describe a disagreement among two younger trainees and offered advice that sounded steady even to her own ears.
Nothing felt wrong.
And yet something felt misaligned, like a room where a piece of furniture had been shifted just enough to make walking through it unfam
