The jasmine-scented air of the hidden courtyard still clung to my skin as dawn’s first pale fingers pried apart the night’s shadows. My pulse hammered against the tangle of silk at my throat—memory of the leap from the eastern wing’s balcony setting my limbs alight with adrenaline. Raidant’s arm around me had been iron support; Anaya’s quick thinking, a lifeline. But now, in the hush of morning, a different urgency gripped me: the truth.

I wrapped my fingers around the balcony’s marble balustrade, smooth and cold beneath my palm. The palace lay silent beyond—the carved lotus columns, the gilded eaves, the torches extinguished until the hour of formal summons. In that silence I felt the weight of everything unsaid: every whisper of betrayal, every stolen glance, every pulse of poison that had nearly claimed us.