Elara POV
By morning, the smoke was gone, but the scent had sunk deep into the stone. It clung to everything—the blanket, my hair, even the air that filled my lungs. When I opened the door, the corridor looked as it always did: gray, empty, indifferent. A single guard scraped soot from the wall with the back of a knife. He didn't look up. He didn't need to. The silence after disaster is always polite.
They told me later it had been a candle. "An accident," they said. But I knew better. Smoke never comes without a reason. Someone, or something, had been reminding me that nothing here was safe—not even my own reflection.
