Lady Seraphine POV
I felt it before anyone told me.
Power always leaves a taste in the air, metallic, sharp, like rain before a storm. The palace had begun to smell that way sometime after the second council session. Fear mixed with desire. The most dangerous blend. They wanted me contained. Which meant it was time to leave. I didn't announce the decision publicly. I never did. Announcements gave people time to interfere. Instead, I gathered my people in the east solar, the one with the tall windows and the cracked mosaic floor that everyone pretended not to notice.
My team arrived in stages. Princess Milabuella came first. She should not have looked the way she did, soft, unguarded, almost painfully gentle. The crown was gone, replaced by a loose wrap and simple slippers, her hair only half-tied as if formality had simply… slipped out of her world.
Exhaustion clung to her, yes, but there was something else beneath it.
