(Serina's POV)
The palace still hummed with the lingering glow of the autumn festival. Every polished corridor seemed to echo with laughter from two nights ago, every gilded candelabrum caught and fractured light like fragments of a memory.
And everywhere Serina went, she could feel it—the attention. Courtiers stopped mid-step to greet her warmly, their eyes lingering just long enough to feel like admiration. Servants whispered behind their hands, the way people do when they believe they've seen a star up close.
It should have been perfect.
It wasn't.
The evening after the festival, she had been summoned by Crown Prince Kael himself. She remembered every heartbeat of it—walking through the candlelit gallery, the rich scent of polished cedar, the silk of her gown brushing against the marble floor.
Kael had been waiting by the tall arched window, moonlight silvering the edges of his dark hair. He turned toward her, his expression calm and unreadable as always, but his gaze… it had lingered.
"Lady Serina," he said, his voice low, even. "You were… captivating at the festival."
The words should have made her glow. They did—but faintly, like light behind a veil.
They spoke of trivialities for a while—court gossip, the upcoming diplomatic dinner—but there was an undercurrent in the way he looked at her, something unspoken. Just as she thought the moment might tip into something more, a guard appeared at the door with a message that drew Kael away.
She was left standing in the gallery, her breath uneven, the moment undone.
It was happening more often now—perfectly framed opportunities slipping.
Earlier today, she had been walking toward the eastern gardens when she spotted Lady Miren speaking to a foreign envoy. That conversation had been hers, in her mind—it was supposed to be hers. She could almost feel it, as though the air itself had promised it to her. But Miren had glanced at her only once, smiled faintly, and kept the envoy's attention entirely to herself.
She didn't know why it bothered her so much.
It wasn't jealousy—at least, not exactly. It was a sense of… imbalance. As though she were meant to stand at the very center of everything, and yet the circle kept shifting, sliding just out of alignment.
"Strange," she murmured to herself as she reached her chambers. The silken drapes stirred in the night air, and for the briefest moment, she imagined they were the black banners of some far-off battlefield.
She shook the image away.
Serina crossed to her vanity, touching the mirror's surface. "I'm still here," she whispered to her reflection. "This is still my story."
Somewhere deep inside, something agreed with her—warm, certain, unyielding. She smiled faintly, the shadow in her heart too
slight for her to notice. Not yet.