The palace wasn't built for comfort.
It was built to impress. To intimidate.
Even the servants' quarters—tucked behind the southern colonnades—carried more marble than warmth. The halls were tall, cold, and echoing, the kind that made sound stretch unnaturally and footsteps feel watched.
Kael swept the corridor with practiced silence, her broom grazing along the marble floor like she wasn't really there. Her tunic stuck to her back with dried sweat, and the scent of boiled soap and polished wood clung to her skin.
She didn't mind it anymore.
Being ignored meant she was safe.
---
By the time she returned to the eastern wing, the sun was already casting pale gold through the arches. She paused briefly by an open corridor, watching the light spill across the tiles. Somewhere beyond the high walls stood the inner sanctum—the imperial family's domain.
No servant from her level was allowed past the inner gates.
Yet even here, she felt it.
The strange pull in the air. A tension beneath the surface. Like invisible wires vibrating at the edge of hearing.
Some said it was the magic of the palace itself.
Others muttered about the princes.
Kael had only caught glimpses—shadows cloaked in authority, surrounded by nervous silence. But she knew enough to be wary. Power that intense always demanded a price.
And something inside her—something instinctive—flinched when they were near.
---
"Boy!"
Kael startled and turned. One of the older housekeepers waved her over, brows drawn tight.
"You've been reassigned. Festival banners in the east storeroom. Move it."
Kael dipped her head. "Yes, mistress."
She moved quickly, keeping her steps even. The corridor turned colder as she went deeper. The eastern storeroom was lined with tall crates and musty fabrics. Servants buzzed quietly inside, sorting cloths, polishing metal, unfolding delicate silks patterned in ancient golds and reds.
She slipped in unnoticed and started helping untangle a collapsed banner, her hands moving almost automatically.
For a moment, the silence gave her room to breathe.
Room to remember—not fire or loss—but movement. Wandering roads, cities she barely remembered the names of, nights spent in barns or market stalls just for a roof.
She didn't think about how she survived.
She just did.
And now she was here.
Buried in silk and shadows, heart pounding at every raised voice, hoping no one looked too closely at her face.
But she also knew this: she hadn't come to the palace just to survive.
She needed to know why.
Why her grandmother whispered warnings she never understood. Why the dying man told her to find safety in Velmoria of all places. Why her presence sometimes stilled the air without reason.
And why the world felt like it had been waiting—for something.
Or someone.
---
By the time the last banner was folded and the storeroom closed up, Kael's arms ached and her sleeves were dusted with crimson threads.
She was wiping her hands on her tunic when the same housekeeper from earlier flagged her down again. "Laundry's done drying. Take the clean linens to the High Azure Hall—upper floor."
Kael nodded, masking the flicker of anxiety that rose in her throat.
The High Azure Hall was close to the inner chambers. Too close. A place low-level servants weren't supposed to linger in.
She retrieved the stack of folded linens from the washing yard, the fabric still sun-warmed, and balanced them carefully in her arms.
---
The corridors grew quieter the further she walked. The air shifted too—heavier, more perfumed, tinged with something… colder.
This part of the palace breathed with the hush of power.
Kael tried to follow the gold-inked markers carved into the stone walls, but the path twisted, then split. A passage she thought she recognized looped her back to a different arch. The walls here were no longer plain—veins of dark marble swirled like smoke in the stone, and tall windows filtered pale light through intricate latticework.
She realized, slowly, that she was lost.
And very much alone.
Kael turned down another hall, hoping it would loop back, when she heard something.
Not footsteps. Not voices.
A low, wet sound. Followed by a throaty groan.
She paused, her breath caught in her throat. The corridor ahead shimmered, as though heat rippled through it—but the air was cold.
A large carved door stood slightly ajar near the end, etched with serpents of onyx and lapis.
Voices drifted through—masculine, amused, strained with pleasure.
Kael's grip on the linens slipped.
She moved closer.
And the moment she looked through the crack of that door—
Her heart stopped.