Zayden rode at the head of the procession, his posture rigid, his gaze fixed ahead. The steady rhythm of hooves against the frozen road echoed behind him as his subordinates followed in silence.
Still, whispers slipped through the crowd.
"Who was the General talking about?" one of the knights murmured. "An exiled princess?"
"You truly don't know?" another replied quietly. "The General once had a younger sister. No one knows what crime she committed—if it was a crime at all—but she was cast out of the empire centuries ago. Perhaps two."
"Exiled?"
"Yes. And even her name is forbidden to be mentioned."
No one spoke after that.
There was a name the empire had buried beneath time.
A name scratched from records, sealed behind locked archives, erased from books and history alike.
A name no one dared to utter—not out of ignorance, but out of dread.
Princess Siera Sylvaris of Revhara. Third in line to the throne. The empire's sole imperial princess.
Zayden's younger sister.
