Anneliese woke to the pale wash of morning light spilling across her chamber. The night had been kind for once, yet instead of being restored, she felt restless. Something unsettled throbbed quietly in her chest, as though sleep had only pressed the unrest deeper.
She lay still for a while, listening to the hush of the castle. It was too quiet, the sort of silence that felt intentional. Even the air seemed to wait, heavy with the memory of the past weeks.
Her fingers twisted in the quilt before she pushed it aside and rose. The marble beneath the thick carpet steadied her, but not enough. At the window, sunlight shimmered gently across the grounds, a picture of calm that felt distant from her own.
Her body had rested, but her spirit had not. The whispers she thought she had escaped in sleep lingered at the edges of her mind—faint, ghostlike—reminding her that peace was always borrowed, never kept.
A soft rap at the door broke her trance.
