**
Ember's had never felt as suffocatingly silent as it did that morning when light came. With Nada and Calyx in prison and the rest of her attendants all confined in the Queen's courtyard, she sat alone, staring out of her window mindlessly.
Regret and despair sat on the tips of her tongue, relentlessly taunting her. Regret for the harsh words she had thrown at the Queen, and despair because she was just realizing that maybe she never held true power.
Nada and Calyx were probably being tortured for a crime they didn't commit, and the Queen still wasn't saying a word to her. So it was safe to say that the silence she would have ordinarily basked in lacked a certain warmth leaving only a chilling coldness behind.
A knock sounded on the door which she ignored. Although for all she cared, she wasn't too sure if she heard the knock. She was too far in her head to discern what was real or not as she stared into space.
