The palace breathed with silence.
Not the peace of a resting kingdom, but the kind of silence that remembered screams. That clung to broken stone and bloodstained walls like the last wisps of smoke after a fire. My boots echoed against cracked marble, each step ringing hollow through the ruined corridors I once called home.
I ran my fingers along the blackened edges of the archways, remnants of carvings that once sang of the Moon Goddess's glory. My glory. These were the halls I was meant to protect, the world I was meant to rule.
Instead, I had watched it fall—twice.
Faint moonlight filtered in through broken windows, bathing the dust in silver. I paused at a place where the ceiling had collapsed entirely. Stars blinked down from a shattered sky, and for a moment, I could almost hear the palace as it had once been: alive, warm, full of laughter and stories and wolves who looked to me not just for power but for hope.
It was gone now.
But I was still here.
