The breeze was soft this morning, gentle against my skin, but it did nothing to quiet the storm within me. I sat on the windowpane, curled against the cold glass, my chin resting on my drawn knees.
Outside, the kingdom moved in soft blurs—guards shifting posts, servants scuttling about with baskets and trays, the sky a dull gray, mirroring the haze in my heart.
Behind me, Mary moved with that same quiet efficiency she always had. She hummed a soft lullaby as she fluffed the pillows and tugged at the corners of the bedsheets, her hands never pausing, never uncertain. I watched her for a moment, watched how the girl could move so easily, so normally, when I felt like a shattered thing clumsily held together by fragile threads of silence.
It had been a week since the duel. A week since Am
