The palace did not feel like a place of safety anymore.
Not after the Ash Moon seal appeared.
Not after the infiltrator died in the archive chamber.
Not after the capital itself began shifting beneath layers of hidden war.
By the time midnight deepened over the city, the western wing had become a fortress of locked doors, doubled guards, and whispered reports carried through candlelit corridors. Outside, the storm still drove snow against the palace walls, whitening the courtyards and muting the fires burning in the lower city, but the cold had not softened the danger. It only made everything quieter while violence gathered.
Selene stood in the private archive chamber again, though the body remained gone and the room had been cleaned as efficiently as the palace could manage. The overturned chair had been set upright. The blood wiped away. The shattered papers gathered into piles for later inspection. Yet the chamber still felt stained by what had happened there.
