If only effort was enough to survive. If only devotion and sleepless labor could ward off disaster, then countless families would not be facing ruin.
While Riley struggled in another part of the palace trying to piece together fragments of memory while not recoiling at his own shamelessness from the night before, deep within the elven palace someone else was drowning in grief.
The chamber was hidden.
A place rarely spoken of, never shown to outsiders, carved into the palace foundation where one would think marble met bedrock.
The air was heavy, the torches too dim, their flames shuddering like frightened children. It was the kind of room where voices felt muffled by stone, where secrets went to die.
And yet today, voices did not die. They cracked. They bled.
"Arlen! Have you been lying to me?"
Lady Rhiannon's voice was sharp, breaking in places where it had once been composed. She, who had always carried herself with serenity, now looked undone.
