CAMELLIA'S POV
I stood outside Princess Oleina's chamber far longer than I had expected. Minutes stretched into half an hour, perhaps even an entire hour. I could no longer tell.
I knocked again, my knuckles rapping softly against the polished wood, hoping persistence might finally coax her into answering. The corridor remained silent, save for the faint echo of my own knocking.
At last, the door opened.
But it wasn't the princess.
A young handmaiden stood in the doorway, her fingers twisting nervously in the hem of her white apron. She looked barely older than I was, and judging by the anxious glances she kept casting over her shoulder, she had been dreading this conversation just as much as I had been waiting for it.
She dipped into an apologetic bow. "I'm very sorry, Miss," she sa
