Palace life was a beast with a thousand eyes and Elara felt them all, even when her back was turned.
Her footsteps no longer just echoed; they accused.
Where she once slipped through unnoticed, whispers now trailed her like a shadow. The courtiers didn't speak with words. They spoke with narrowed glances and sudden silence whenever she passed.
"She looks too ordinary," someone murmured once, unaware she heard.
"She's dangerous," another whispered. "Or worse she's powerless."
They didn't know which scared them more.
Elara was caught in between the forgotten servant no one remembered and the Chosen no one dared believe in.
She stood in her new chambers, a palace room far too large for one person. Velvet draped the walls, marble gleamed under soft light, and secrets pressed around her like a second skin.
She touched nothing. Not the embroidered robes laid out like offerings. Not the fruit arranged like crown jewels. Not the scrolls sealed with royal wax.
"Why are you giving me all this?" she had asked the steward on her first night.
He didn't blink. "The Stone chose you. We serve the Stone."
"But none of you look like you believe it."
He blinked, just once.
"The palace doesn't run on belief, my lady. It runs on fear."
And fear, she learned, was everywhere.
At night, she wandered the halls with her hood drawn low, memorizing every crack in the stone, every hallway that felt wrong. Behind one tapestry, she found a hidden door. Behind that, a stairwell spiraled into pitch-dark corridors.
She lit a candle. Didn't hesitate.
She wasn't running away.
She was watching.
On the third day, her chambermaid Ana young, lively, with raw cracked fingers spoke while scrubbing the hearth.
"You shouldn't walk alone. Not here. Not anymore."
Elara raised a brow. "Why? Is something watching?"
Ana froze mid-scrub. "Everything's watching. Even the Stone."
Elara moved closer, kneeling by the fire. "Do you believe it? That I'm the Chosen?"
Ana didn't meet her eyes. "Does it matter? The court thinks you are. That's enough to make them either love you or want to gut you."
Elara stared into the flames. "Let them try."
Ana's voice dropped. "They won't try to kill you. Not outright. That would make a martyr. No they'll do worse. They'll break you. Twist you. Make you doubt yourself until you give your power away. Willingly."
Elara went still. "Then they'll be disappointed."
Ana's lips twitched, just a little. "Then maybe you really are the Chosen."
That night, sleep escaped her. Her thoughts burned too loud.
She scribbled questions in the dark: What does it mean to be chosen? Why me? What power? What price?
She folded the scraps and tucked them into the cold fireplace, like offerings to a god she wasn't sure existed.
On the sixth night, a note slid beneath her door.
No footsteps. No sound.
Just silence and a thin, trembling piece of parchment.
Her hands shook as she lit a candle and read:
"They fear what they can't control. But you? You were never meant to be controlled. Keep your eyes open. M"
She read it twice. Then again.
Then she smiled not because she felt safe, but because someone else was playing the game.
She folded the note and slipped it inside her cloak's lining.
Later, standing before the mirror, she didn't study the starlight robe hugging her frame. She studied her eyes sharp, unreadable, unafraid.
The girl from the servant's quarters was gone.
In her place stood something harder. Quieter. Ready.
She didn't know who M was.
But she knew this:
The walls had ears.
And Elara was done whispering.