Skylar's POV
I didn't expect the palace to feel so... foreign.
It wasn't the gold-coated walls or the scent of marbled floors polished to perfection. It was the silence—the kind that made your footsteps echo like treason.
Two guards flanked the enormous black-iron doors that led into Chris's chamber. They didn't salute. They didn't speak. They only stared, waiting for permission they weren't sure they had the authority to grant.
I walked slowly, dressed not in royal robes, but in the same ash-gray coat I wore during my last broadcast—the one where I publicly stood with the people… and against him.
My boots stopped inches from the doorstep, the edge of power.
The guards looked to each other.
And then—
"Step back."
The voice cut the air like steel drawn from a sheath. Sharp, feminine… and all too familiar.
Amara.
She descended the stairs on the opposite side like a general walking into a battlefield, her gloves still stained from strategy, eyes blazing with calculated fury. She walked with confidence—confidence only earned by someone who's been given full authority to end wars or start them.
"You shouldn't be here," she said coldly.
I raised my chin. "This is still my home."
"Not anymore," Amara replied, standing just close enough for her presence to be a threat. "You walked away from this. You chose the streets over the throne. And now you show up unannounced, at his door?"
I didn't flinch. "I didn't come to fight."
"Good," she snapped. "Because you wouldn't win."
A flicker of tension passed between us, but behind her hostility, I saw something deeper. Worry? No. Fear—but not for herself.
For him.
"I'm here because Chris is slipping," I said, keeping my voice steady. "He's drowning behind walls and war protocols. And no one around him seems willing to tell him the truth."
She narrowed her eyes. "You think you're the only one who sees what he's becoming? I see it every day. I stand beside him when no one else will. While you—"
"While I refused to become what he's becoming," I cut in sharply.
Silence again.
Then slowly, the massive door creaked open from within.
A voice spoke from the shadows.
"Let her in."
Amara stiffened. Her jaw tightened, but she stepped aside—barely.
As I walked past her, she whispered, "If you hurt him again... I won't wait for orders next time."
I paused at the threshold, turned just slightly.
"If I was here to hurt him… I wouldn't have knocked."
And then I stepped into the darkness of Chris's chamber.
The doors shut behind me.