Chapter 13 --13.
I am trying, Mother. I am trying to see and not look away. Even if I cannot step into court and argue like Eleana, even if my hands shake when I sign my own name in front of strangers, I can still do small things in the spaces they do not care about. I can loosen a collar here, strengthen a ward there, hide a frightened maid in a storeroom when a prince has had too much wine.
But today I learned something I do not know what to do with.
One of Eleana’s knights laughed in the corridor when he thought I had gone. He said it is a pity the Emperor wastes gloms on "this wing," that no one watches them anyway, that if the Fourth Princess died tomorrow in her sleep, the only ones who would notice are the maids who change the sheets. The others agreed. They spoke of succession as if I were already a name on a stone.
I am not afraid of dying. I am afraid of disappearing so quietly that no one ever asks why.
If someone finds this book after I am gone, I hope they will at least know that I saw what was wrong, even if I was too cowardly to tear it down. That I loved a mother who tried to mend the world in small, stubborn ways. That I did not hate my sisters, even when they terrified me. That I looked at the beasts and saw people first.
The resonance stone on my desk is still cold. The collars still hum. The gloms still drift overhead, blinking their little blind eyes. I do not know who, if anyone, is truly watching.
But I am here. I am writing. And for tonight, that will have to be enough.
Elara read the last cramped line on the page and let her eyes pause on the date at the top.
So the old Yue Lian had seen more than anyone gave her credit for. Beasts, gloms, Eleana, Father. Fragile on the outside, not blind at all.
A soft scuff broke the quiet.