Time/Date: TC1853.01.23 – Dawn
Location: East Palace → Seer Council Tower
Kael arrived at Amara's chambers as dawn painted the East Palace in shades of rose and gold—colors that should have looked beautiful but instead reminded him of blood diluted in water. The kind of watered-down crimson that appeared when guilt tried to wash itself clean but only succeeded in spreading the stain.
The guards outside straightened at his approach, faces professionally neutral as they watched the Imperial Prince enter his wife's prison. Because that's what it had become, wasn't it? These rooms that Amara had occupied with such triumph mere days ago—the East Palace chambers where she'd positioned herself as Imperial Consort, where she'd believed herself untouchable—had transformed overnight into a gilded cage.
