Her sniffles were quiet, muffled into her palms as she walked with her head bowed. She did not want the guards, the maids, or anyone at all to see her unraveling, so she purposely took a different path. Every step along the torchlit corridor felt heavier, the silence pressing in until she thought her breath might betray her.
The laughter she had imagined tonight still rang in her ears. The music, the dance, the lively atmosphere of the banquet she thought she would finally taste after months of staying in the palace still clung stubbornly in her head. But alas, there was only the hollow echo of her heels against the same marble floor.
She could not bring herself to return to her chamber, not when her maids had worked so tirelessly to help her prepare only for her to end up nowhere at all. The thought of their gentle smiles and eager questions twisted inside her chest. She did not wish to feel it, but shame pricked at her all the same.
