The palace had begun to feel like a beast breathing through clenched teeth.
Every corridor carried echoes that weren't there the day before. Footsteps that stopped when you listened, doors that closed a fraction too softly, conversations that died the moment a shadow moved. The air itself tasted different: thinner, sharper, laced with the metallic promise of violence held just out of sight. Seren noticed it most in the silences. The kind of quiet that wasn't peaceful but watchful.
She had barely slept.
