Talia’s POV
My room was unbearably quiet. It was the kind of silence that came after destruction, when the screaming had stopped and the bodies had stopped moving.
Outside my bedroom window, torches crackled in the cold night air, their flickering light slipping through the curtains and casting shadows across the walls. Occasionally, footsteps echoed somewhere deep within the palace, followed by voices that disappeared almost as quickly as they came.
I stared blankly at the ceiling, unable to sleep despite how exhausted I was. Pain lingered throughout my body. My ribs burned beneath the tight bandages wrapped around my torso, and every movement sent soreness through muscles that had already been pushed beyond their limits.
But none of it compared to the ache in my head.
“No matter how
