The third bell of the morning tolled, and with it the memorial began. Yet no guest walking through the palace gates that day could have guessed they were arriving at a ceremony of mourning. To their eyes, it looked nothing like a memorial at all. If anything, it seemed they had been summoned for a royal feast, perhaps even an early celebration of Founder's Week that would not come for another month.
Even before they reached the banquet hall, the palace was transformed beyond recognition. The reception hall of the Main Wing, once austere in its drapery of white and crimson—the colors of Nivara's banners, and of every memorial before this one—was now awash in brightness. Flowers of every shade filled the corridor from end to end, flowing in garlands and vases from the reception all the way to the banquet hall.
And once the guests stepped inside the hall itself, the sight only deepened. A feast of colors spread across the vast chamber, petals in crimson, gold, violet and ivory spilling like paint across every corner of stone and silk. Murmurs rose quickly among the crowd, echoing beneath the high ceiling even before people found their seats.
The hand behind all this brightness did not stand among them to witness their reaction. Sina remained in the back room, only a door's breadth away from the dais where her brother would soon rise to deliver his speech. The wall between was thin enough that she would hear every word of him, though she herself would not be seen.
Almost everyone who had once known her face as the Princess of Nivara had perished in that banquet. The few who survived—or who had never arrived at all—rarely crossed her path afterward. The new figures filling the Bureaus and the command ranks hardly knew what Princess Rosina even looked like. They only knew she had withdrawn from public life, sealing herself in her quarters with her grief. Best to leave it that way.
Besides, her dear friend Saria Florette—and the entire Ignis squad deployed for that morning's opening ceremony—had already arrived. The last thing she wanted was to be seen by those very people.
Sina wasn't alone in the back room. Daliya sat with her, dressed not in the usual gray of her uniform but in a gown of green. The head maid had protested at first, of course, but Sina had insisted. It was the Late Queen's favorite color, Sina had said. And when Daliya had studied her own reflection long enough, smoothing her skirts with reluctant hands, even she had to admit the truth: perhaps she ought to wear green more often.
As for Sina, she had chosen light blue, the delicate hue that matched her eyes. The dress had long been left in her wardrobe; she hated how it strangled her. But her father had always complimented her when she wore it. So for this morning—just a few hours—she would suffer it.
"Your Highness," Daliya murmured from the seat behind her, "I'm glad you chose to attend this year."
Sina turned, glancing back at the head maid with a faint smile. "And I'm glad you came with me," she said.
Before long, Roen joined them in the back room, cloaked in deep crimson over the King's white military uniform, its collar and sleeves traced with gold thread. It was the same fit their father had once worn—the unmistakable attire of the Nivaran monarch. The moment he stepped inside, Sina rose and met him with a close embrace.
"I see you've made some... interesting decorating choices," Roen teased as he drew back.
"Just what Mother and Father would have liked, don't you think?" she countered, her tone light, though her eyes swept over him from head to toe, taking in the regal weight of his bearing.
"I'm sure they would have loved it," Roen murmured, his smile softening. "I should go prepare for the speech. Will you be all right here?"
"Of course," Sina said. "I have Daliya with me. No need to worry."
Behind her, Daliya finally lifted her voice, though her head remained bowed. "I will be here should Her Highness need anything, Your Majesty."
"Good," Roen replied, first to the maid, then to his sister. "I'll return quickly. See you after the ceremony."
He gave her one last, firm squeeze before leaving for the banquet hall. When the doors closed behind him, Sina and Daliya sank back into their chairs.
For a while, there was nothing but the muffled hum of the crowd on the other side of the wall, servants' feet rushing in and out, the rustle of silks, the clink of trays. Then the chamber hushed. And from beyond the thin wall, Roen's voice carried, clear and solemn.
"Esteemed guests, members of the Crown Bureaus, representatives of all Prime Houses, welcome. Eight years have passed since the shadow fell upon our families and our kingdom, staining a night of celebration with unthinkable malice. Though the passage of time may dull the shock, it cannot dim the brightness of their memory, nor lessen the debt of honor we owe them. Today, we remember. Today, we honor their full lives, not only their final moment."
The speech carried on, long and steady beneath Roen's firm, deliberate cadence.
If it were her standing where he stood, Sina thought, she could never summon words like his—compelling, powerful, woven with certainty. Her own voice would have lulled the chamber into drowsiness, soft and uncertain, never bold enough to hold such a crowd. And if she were honest with herself, she wasn't even sure she was ready to be here at all. Even after she had decided herself, just days ago, to help Roen prepare—to stop hiding from the place she had dreaded for years—she was still unsure.
She had come more for him, for them both, than for what could not be recovered; walking through that cursed hall in the past few days, arranging flowers, draping silks, she had felt almost nothing. Yet now, tucked into the quiet of the back room, the memories returned. Not the hall itself, not the banquet's laughter cut short, but the hours after. The waking.
The smell hit her first: the thick, bitter stench of boiled roots and dried licorice filling her nose, sharp enough to claw at her stomach. It made the nausea churn and twist, though there was nothing left in her hollow gut to retch up. Only that savage, dull ache gnawing in her abdomen.
Her body was wasted, emptied. Bone-deep inertia weighed every limb; she could not summon even the smallest flicker of strength. Her mouth tasted of ash and copper—blood, perhaps, still clinging to her tongue from what she had heaved up before the darkness took her. Her skin was clammy, slicked in a sheen of fever-sweat. She tried to force her eyes open, but the light from the window sliced across her vision like a blade. And when she finally endured it, all she saw was a milk-blurred haze.
Am I still alive? was her first thought.
Where are Mother and Father? was her second.
Then came the images—her parents' bodies slumped, their garments darkened, dripping, the crimson spilling faster than she could comprehend.
Panic rose in her chest, fierce and wild, but her body betrayed her. No voice, no movement, nothing but the raw ache of helplessness. The cries remained inside her, silent, drowned in the pain and terror wracking her small frame. She shook faintly, and even that was too much.
It was then she heard hurried footsteps drawing near.
Rosina couldn't make out where she was, nor who lingered in the room, but a voice reached her—low, unfamiliar, tight with panic, speaking from just beside her.
"Your Highness, you're awake."
Footsteps scrambled away almost at once, retreating quickly. A door opened, then shut again, soft but final.
Exhaustion dragged her back under. She slipped into the dark once more, for how long she could not tell. But when awareness returned again, it was to the warmth of a hand closing gently over hers, and a whisper spoken so tenderly, so achingly familiar.
"Rosina, I'm here."
Roen's voice.
She forced her eyes open and met the pale blue gaze she knew better than her own. Only now those beautiful eyes were rimmed in red, the whites veined with strain. The face she had always thought of as strong and composed was lined with sleeplessness, etched deep with worry. His skin was sallow, the shadows beneath his eyes dark and bruised. New creases tugged faintly at the corners of his mouth and brow—marks that had not been there a week ago, when he'd left for the western border inspection. He was only twenty-four, but in that moment he looked older.
Her chest tightened with pain at the sight.
She tried to part her lips, to speak—anything to soothe him, to let him know she was still herself—but no sound came. Only a thin rasp of air broke from her lungs, raw and searing in her throat. She winced in pain.
"No, no." Roen hushed her quickly, his voice soft but breaking. "Don't speak. You're awake. You're still alive. You're still with me."
The words trembled, unsteady. He bent his head, pressing his brow to the back of her hand, and whispered with a shaking breath, "Thank you, Gods."
It startled her, even in her haze. For as long as Rosina could remember, her brother Roen—though trained as all royals were in the rites and rituals of Nivara, destined himself to be king, a figure marked holy—had always been a man of science and reason. Never once had he believed in Gods.
But before she could dwell on the strangeness of his prayer, his voice came again, steady but tender.
"I've had the maids prepare some broth. It's all you're allowed for now. I know you're very tired, but you've gone two days without anything. Just stay down, try to swallow. I'll feed you."
Two days. So she had been unconscious that long since the banquet. But Roen hadn't spoken a word about their parents. The silence pressed against her chest, heavier than her weakness. She wanted to ask, but she couldn't even nod, let alone force the question out. Better to wait. To gather what little strength she could, and eat.
His hands fumbled with the spoon, awkward in a way so unlike the Crown Prince she knew. The broth dribbled down her chin more often than not, and he had to wipe it away with the gentleness of a man unused to nursing the sick. But she didn't mind. The warmth of his presence was enough to push her through the raw ache of swallowing, though the salt burned her dry throat and knifed down into her hollow, battered stomach. After a few mouthfuls, she turned her face aside, defeated.
But it wasn't over.
What came next was worse: a glass vial, thick with some dark, syrupy decoction. Its bitter stench made her stomach clench before it even touched her lips. Still, Roen coaxed her, and she let the liquid trickle down. The taste was wretched—earthy, metallic, lingering. She barely swallowed it before gagging on the aftertaste.
"It's bitter, I know," Roen said gently, though his words struck like iron. "But you must take this every four hours. It will repair the lining of your gut and slow the bleeding."
She had no voice left to protest, only the slow blink of her eyes, her faint attempt at telling him she understood.
"Don't think of anything," he murmured, his gaze raw, pleading. "Only rest. Stay in bed until you're stronger. It will take time—but promise me you'll try. Do it for me."
Her head shifted the slightest bit, and that was enough for him. He gave her a small, fragile smile, pressed a kiss against her fevered brow.
"I must go," he said softly, with regret. "There are matters in the Main Wing. But whenever you need me, I'll come."
And then he left.
The same rhythm repeated itself through that first long week—broth and decoction, one weary swallow at a time—only it was Daliya or the other maids who tended her. By the third day she could manage to move, to whisper a few words. And when she did, the only ones she forced past her lips were, "Where... my parents?"
Daliya had bent close, her face stricken, her voice no louder than a breath. "Your Highness, you must rest. You must get better."
The truth came only later, when Roen returned.
That evening, after the Crown Prince left the Princess's Wing, the maids noticed a change. The Princess who once barked cold, careless commands grew silent, almost spectral. Whether sipping broth, taking water, enduring her baths, or letting her hair be brushed, she seemed to exist in stillness alone. Her eyes fixed always on some infinite distance, her face as blank as carved stone. Only when the Crown Prince visited did her lips seem to move—but the maids were never close enough to hear what words might pass.
When at last she could walk again, she began leaving her quarters for the Archives Wing, as she had often done before. But now her visits stretched on longer, and she returned with stacks of books in her arms.
So it went for the three months that followed: a Princess who drifted in silence, living only between pages, her mind seeming always somewhere far beyond reach.
Things began to shift only when Rosette Liane—once a monthly guest at the Princess's Wing before the incident—finally came to visit the Princess one evening, three months after she had first awakened.