Auburn woke to the sound of bells tolling across the castle grounds. At first, she forgot where she was.
The soft velvet beneath her palms, the embroidered sheets brushing against her skin, and the canopy above her, all of it felt like some stranger's life.
She had grown up on straw mats and worn blankets; this chamber was Scarlett's, the lost princess's room, and now it had been handed to her as though it belonged.
But it didn't. It never would.
Her heart raced as she sat up, pressing a hand to her chest.
The Trial of Blood was still vivid in her mind: the silence when nothing happened, the suffocating fear, and then the sudden flicker of Cherry's magic.
She had been moments from being branded an imposter and executed in front of the entire court. Her death would have been quick, merciless, forgotten.
Instead, she had walked out alive. Not just alive? crowned by whispers, called Princess Auburn.
The title lingered in her head, both intoxicating and suffocating.
