The morning fog clung low over Celestial Harmony Sect, not a gentle mist but a cold, watchful presence that refused to lift. Lyra kept her head down as she carried the pails across the courtyard, each step echoing in the wet stone. The air tasted faintly of iron and wet pine, and somewhere in the distance, the high chime of a bronze bell marked the disciples' morning meditation.
She wasn't a disciple.
Not yet. Not ever, if the elders had their way.
The others liked to remind her of that.
A streak of soapy water splashed across her dress as Mira, the senior servant girl, "accidentally" bumped into her. "Watch your step, little mouse," Mira said with a smile too sharp to be friendly. "Wouldn't want you tripping into something you can't handle."
Lyra didn't answer. She had learned early that words here were as dangerous as blades, and often sharper. She simply set the pails down and wrung out her sleeve, fingers trembling, not from fear, but from the effort it took not to imagine Mira choking on her own smirk.
Once, she might have said something. Once, she might have believed that if she worked hard enough, kept her head down, she'd be noticed for more than the fact that she was a servant's orphan left at the Sect's gate. Now she understood the truth: here, effort meant nothing without talent, and talent was decided by the elders' gaze, not by fate or blood.
The air shifted. She glanced toward the far end of the courtyard where the main staircase rose, black stone against pale fog. From the shadows there, a figure emerged, tall, robed in deep crimson, the Sect's golden insignia pinned at his chest. Prince Kieran.
The way the others straightened in his presence was instinctive, like grass bending to the wind. Lyra didn't move. She simply adjusted her grip on the pails and began to walk. Still, she felt the weight of his gaze as it passed over her, quick but searching, as if he'd caught the faintest trace of a thought she hadn't spoken aloud.
She hated that.
Her path took her past the Hall of Records, where the elders kept scrolls of cultivation techniques and histories older than the Empire itself. She always slowed here, just enough to catch the scent of sandalwood and parchment seeping through the cracks in the door. The air felt heavier near that hall, charged in a way she could never explain. Some mornings, she swore she heard faint whispers from inside, fragments of words she could almost understand before they slipped away like fish beneath dark water.
Today, the whispers felt stronger.
Lyra lingered for one heartbeat too long. A bell rang sharply behind her, shattering the moment, and she quickened her pace. But the sound of those whispers clung to her thoughts like burrs to cloth.
It was going to be another long day.
She didn't know, not yet, that it would also be the last ordinary day of her life.