Chapter 2 — Ashes
I don't know how long I sat there.
With her.
Over and over I called her name, like my voice could change something.
"Liora..."
It always broke. I didn't care.
"You're just tired, right?"
Silence.
I pulled her closer, almost as if holding on tightly enough would make her stay. As if refusing to let go meant she couldn't leave.
"Liora... Wake up."
Nothing.
I pressed my face into her hair. It still smelled like her — like the oils she used every morning, the ones she always complained about running out of, the ones she'd make me describe because she could never decide which she liked best. Warm. Faintly floral. Still her.
That was what broke me.
Not the blood. Not the silence. Just that she still smelled like herself.
"You were supposed to show me the eastern gardens," I whispered. "You said when I came back. You said we'd go in spring when the—"
My voice collapsed.
A knock sounded at the door.
I went still.
Another. Louder.
"Your Highness?"
I looked down at my hands. Blood. Still warm.
Another knock.
"Princess?"
I gently placed Liora back onto the bed. Carefully. Deliberately. Smoothing the sheets around her the way she always hated — too neat, too precise, she'd kick them loose within minutes every time. I smoothed her hair back from her face.
"I'll fix this," I whispered.
The knocking came harder.
I looked at her one last time. Her face was still. Calm. She looked like she was sleeping — she always looked peaceful when she slept. I had told her that once and she had laughed and said that's because you're the one who overthinks enough for both of us.
I turned away and went through the window before I could stop myself.
The funeral came faster than I expected.
Two days. That was all it took.
I stood across the street from the palace gates, hood pulled low. Far enough that no guard would recognize me. Close enough that I could see her.
The courtyard was full. Black clothes, candles, priests murmuring in the center of the yard. The entire kingdom had come — of course they had. She was beloved. She had always been beloved, that warmth that made people feel seen even when she was simply passing them in a corridor. Servants who would do anything for her. Soldiers who spoke her name softly. Children who ran toward her without any fear at all.
They were all here now.
I couldn't move.
I told myself it was fear of the guards. Fear of being recognized.
But that wasn't it.
That feeling. The one from the morning. The awful, wrong peacefulness — it was there again. Faint. Spreading slowly inward the longer I stood here watching the candlelight on her face. Watching the flowers being laid across her hands.
No.
I took one step forward.
My body felt it immediately. That shift. That terrible calm beginning to deepen the way it had that morning, right before—
I stopped.
My hands closed into fists.
One more step, I told myself. You owe her that. You owe her a witness.
I took the step.
The warmth surged.
I stumbled backward like I'd been struck, pressing myself against the cold wall behind me, breathing hard. Prayers drifted across the courtyard. Someone was weeping. The flowers on her hands were white — she had always said white funeral flowers were depressing, that if she ever died she wanted something with color, something that still looked alive.
Nobody had known that but me.
I turned away.
Not because I feared them. Because I feared myself — feared what my hands already knew how to do without my permission. Feared what would happen if that feeling deepened one more inch.
I walked into the dark without looking back.
Behind me the prayers continued.
She deserved better witnesses than me.