The throne room stood empty.
Dust drifted in sunbeams. The crown sat untouched on a velvet cushion, where Cyr had left it.
He had not returned.
Not once.
Because she wasn't there to see it.
—
Weeks passed.
Snow fell and melted. Banners shifted. Ministers squabbled. But the prince did not speak in court.
He slept beside a silent bed in the Frostfall infirmary, head often bowed beside her motionless hand.
Eileen lay beneath layers of moonwoven blankets, breath faint, heartbeat a flickering rhythm.
Every healer said the same: *Her body lives. Her voice does not.*
Her gift had turned inward, cocooned behind the wounds it had once mended.
Cyr stayed anyway.
Each morning, he brushed her hair and told her the news.
He recited supply lists. Read weather reports. Described how the sou
