SELENE POV
I knew before anyone told me.
The palace speaks, if you know how to listen.
Servants whisper when they think no one hears. Guards exchange looks. Even the air feels different when something shifts at the top of power.
They took her out, Into the city for a date.
The word burned, and felt so bitter as I mentioned it.
They never took me out, except it was a meeting.
I stood by the balcony as their car returned, watching from the shadows. She even had the gut to walk past them, like they didn’t exist.
It wasn’t my imagination anymore.
She had them, Not fully.
But close enough to threaten everything I had worked hard for.
Rumors were already spreading. That she laughed with them. That she dined with them. That she walked through the palace like she belonged there.
