The light of dawn crept through the blinds, painting thin golden lines across the dark wood floor. Emily sat by the window, unmoving, her eyes tracing the distant horizon where the city bled into the clouds. She hadn't slept. The silence of the house wrapped around her, thick and heavy, as if the walls themselves were holding their breath.
Downstairs, the household moved in its usual rhythm servants whispering, dishes clinking, her stepmother's voice rising and falling like a rehearsed melody. Emily stayed apart, watching, listening. Every sound was information. Every silence, a gap to be filled.
Her body still felt alien weak wrists, slow reflexes, lungs that protested when she pushed them too far. But every morning, she forced herself through the pain. Today was no different. The steady rhythm of movement filled her room: stretches, slow lunges, shadow strikes that mimicked the patterns she once practiced with real blades.
When she finished, she sank to the floor, her breath steady but her heart sharp. You can't take back a throne with weakness, she thought. And you can't kill a ghost if you don't know its name.
She turned to her laptop again, opening a secure browser window. The familiar rhythm of code greeted her fingers a language she'd once built empires with in silence. It didn't take long before she found the first thread of what she was looking for: a news report buried beneath political chatter.
> "Unrest continues in the Kingdom of Norvale following the death of Crown Princess Emily. Military restructuring is underway under the authority of Duke Raen Norvale, brother to the late King. Sources claim the Duke's control over national security has tightened significantly since the tragedy…"
Emily's hand froze over the mouse. Duke Raen Norvale.
Her uncle.
The name pulsed on the screen like a wound. She read the report twice, each word sinking deeper. It didn't say traitor. It didn't say murderer. But she could read the truth in between. The restructuring, the swift control, the silence about the battlefield all of it fit too neatly.
She shut the laptop with controlled calm, though her pulse had quickened. Rage was a luxury she could not afford not yet.
A soft knock on the door. She didn't answer. After a moment, the knock came again, hesitant. It was one of the maids Mira, the youngest. The girl had been assigned to her after the accident, trembling every time she entered the room.
"Y-Your tea, Miss Emily," the maid stammered through the door.
"Leave it there," Emily said quietly.
The footsteps retreated. Emily waited until the sound disappeared before she crossed the room and picked up the tray. A small folded note sat beneath the cup something only her eyes would have noticed. She unfolded it slowly.
'They're watching your window. Be careful who you trust.'
Her brows tightened, but her face stayed calm. She glanced toward the garden outside. From this angle, the view seemed peaceful just sunlight and trimmed roses. But between the hedges, she saw it now: the faint glint of glass. A camera lens.
Her lips curved slightly, not in fear, but acknowledgment.
"Whispers," she murmured. "Always watching, always whispering."
She moved to the curtains and drew them shut, plunging the room into half-darkness. Then she took her tea, sat down, and began to plan.
If they wanted to watch, she would give them something worth fearing.
Tomorrow, she would start digging deeper. She would reach into Norvale's underbelly, back into the networks she once built the digital empire the world believed belonged to a faceless genius. That mask was still hers, and it was time to wear it again.
Emily leaned back in her chair, the faint taste of bitterness on her tongue.
-----------------
Somewhere in Norvale, her uncle was drinking fine wine under her father's stolen crest.
His assistant was standing beside him him silently controlling the new and the people's protest demanding that the royal family give an explanation about princess Emily's death
Duke Raen slammed his walking stick on the table
"Peasants"!
Hos assistant trembled
"I'm already working on it Sir"
He look at him with disgust in his eyes
"You better wrap it up quickly and make sure you leave no loop holes. Nothing must be traced back to me"!
" I understand sir"