The Empress's garden was unlike any other in the palace. Hidden beyond a set of arched gates wrapped in silver ivy, it hummed with quiet power. No guards stood post, and few dared to speak of it. It was said the Empress walked there to speak to things older than time.
Elara had only seen it once through the thin crack of a servant's door. A glimpse of moonflowers glowing in the dark. A hush in the air that stilled even the wind.
She hadn't expected to be summoned there.
The guards at the gate didn't speak. They simply stepped aside. The way opened.
Now, she stood beneath the weight of centuries. Vines curled through marble columns. Petals brushed her arms like ghosts. The air shimmered with unseen memory.
At the garden's heart stood the Empress still as stone, her silk robes pooling like spilled ink.
Beside her stood Isla.
Spine straight. Chin lifted. Golden braid glinting.
But her eyes? Cold.
Not curious. Not kind. Just cold.
She didn't look like a girl Elara's age. She looked like a crown waiting to be worn.
And the moment Elara stepped through the garden gate, she felt it.
The shift.
The sharpness behind Isla's gaze.
Not fear. Not surprise.
Resentment.
As if Elara had stolen something.
As if just standing there was an insult.
The Empress didn't notice or chose not to.
"Elara," she said, smooth as mist. "Come."
Elara stepped forward. Her boots made no sound on the moss-laced path. Strange scents drifted wild mint, star-anise, crushed moonlily. Everything pulsed with a quiet, watching tension.
"I trust Ana woke you in time," the Empress said.
"Yes, Your Majesty," Elara replied, bowing slightly.
A pause. Long enough to unsettle.
"You've been in the palace for weeks," the Empress said, "and yet… you still walk like a servant."
Elara's hands tightened at her sides. "I was a servant. That doesn't vanish overnight."
At that, the Empress half-turned.
Elara's breath caught.
There resting just above the neckline of the Empress's gown was a pendant. Iridescent. Flickering with hidden fire. Not identical to her's, but unmistakably kin.
Shaped from the same impossible glass.
Elara reached beneath her own cloak, brushing the pendant at her chest.
"Do you believe in legacy?" the Empress asked.
Elara blinked. "I… I'm not sure."
The Empress walked on. Isla moved with her graceful, steady, drawn as if by force.
"Most legacies are illusions," the Empress said. "Fathers pass down burdens. Mothers pass down silence. We inherit scars. Not crowns."
Isla glanced up at the Empress then at Elara. Her gaze sharp. Disdainful. Cold.
No pity. No sisterhood. Only threat.
"You summoned me," Elara said, keeping her voice steady. "Why?"
The Empress stopped. Turned fully now.
Her gaze met Elara's. Cool. Measuring.
"You remind me of someone."
Elara's stomach dipped. "Who?"
"She stood in this garden once," the Empress said. "Before she forgot her place."
Elara swallowed. "Was it… my mother?"
The Empress's lips curved but it wasn't a smile. Not really.
"She was a maid. Common. Poor. Not clean enough to walk these paths. And yet she came. Pregnant. Foolish. Believing love could lift her."
Isla's lip curled slightly. She turned her face away.
Elara stepped forward without thinking. "My mother"
"Was a mistake," the Empress said.
Silence cracked like ice.
Elara's heart thudded. Her throat burned.
But it was Isla who spoke next.
Her voice low. Measured.
"And yet… somehow her daughter walks here."
The Empress looked at her sharply.
But Isla's expression didn't falter. She smiled but it didn't reach her eyes.
"Gardens remember seeds. Not shame," she said.
A jab disguised as poetry.
The Empress held her gaze.
Then turned away. Silk whispering against the moss.
Isla lingered.
She didn't look at Elara. Just brushed past her.
And then she, too, was gone.
Only the garden remained.
A wind stirred the leaves. From deeper within, a soft chime rang out. Sad. Beautiful. Like glass remembering a song it once knew.
Elara turned toward the sound.
For a moment, she felt pulled like something inside her knew this place, this grief, this hush.
But when she looked back, the path was empty.
She wasn't sure how long she stood there.
Back in her chamber, Elara slumped against the door.
Her pulse still hadn't settled.
She reached beneath her collar. Drew out the pendant.
It glowed faintly. Alive.
The Empress had one too. That wasn't coincidence.
That was a link.
Elara's thoughts spiraled questions without shape, truths without form.
She didn't hear the shadow shift until it was too late.
"I should ask how you keep getting in," she said softly.
M stepped out of the gloom.
"You won't get an answer."
His smile was faint, but his eyes were sharp.
"Did you know?" she asked. "About my mother? That she might've been… more?"
M didn't speak right away. His gaze lingered on her face, on the weight behind the question.
"She was more than you were told," he said. "But power rewrites stories. You know that."
Elara looked away. "The Empress called her a mistake."
"And you believed her?"
"I don't know what to believe."
M stepped closer.
His fingers brushed the edge of the pendant.
"Then believe what your heart tells you. Not thrones. Not whispers. Blood. Fire. That's where the truth lives."
Elara closed her eyes.
"I think," she whispered, "my mother wasn't just a servant."
"No," M said. "She wasn't."
Before she could ask more, there was a knock.
"Elara?" Ana's voice came through. "May I come in?"
M melted into shadow. Gone.
Elara opened the door.
Ana stepped in, hands on her hips. "You look pale."
"I'm fine," Elara said.
Ana gave her a look. "Was the garden terrible?"
Elara blinked. "Terrible?"
Ana shrugged. "They say no one comes back from there the same. That it shows you who you really are."
Elara didn't answer.
She looked at the corner where M had stood.
Then down at the pendant in her palm.
Her mother had walked that garden once.
Carried her in silence. Loved in defiance.
And whatever shame the Empress tried to wrap her in it hadn't broken her.
She left behind more than whispers.
She left fire.
And fire remembers.