[ 🎶 Suggested Track: Lullaby – The Cure (Orchestral Version) ]
The Setting: The Great Hall of Velmora
The music resumed, but it was a hollow sound. The violins labored through a waltz that no one truly wanted to dance. Every eye in the Great Hall was pinned to the woman in white.
Echo stood at the center of the floor, a solitary moon in a sky of blood-red silk. She didn't move. She didn't hide. She simply existed, and in the year 1520, a woman who existed too loudly was a target.
"Look at the hair," a Duchess hissed, her fan snapping shut like a bone breaking. "No God-fearing woman carries such a wild mane. It is untamed. It is... unholy."
"And the eyes," a Duke whispered back, his hand instinctively moving to the silver crucifix at his neck. "Silver as a fallen coin. I've heard tales of the mountain-folk... the ones who deal in shadows. Could she be the one from the square? The one the fire couldn't swallow?"
