The air within the palace had shifted.
Alina could feel it in the weight of the sky, in the murmurs of the servants, in the way the very stones beneath her feet seemed to hum with unseen energy. It was as though the world was holding its breath, waiting for something unseen to unfold.
And she was not the only one who had noticed.
It began with the court astrologers.
Whispers spread like wildfire through the palace—the celestial readings had been troubling. The heavens, which once foretold prosperity, now spoke of turmoil. The stars above the capital had shifted into unfamiliar patterns, disrupting the sacred alignments used to predict fate.
"They say the Red Star has returned," Alina overheard one of the scribes' whispers nervously as she passed through the scroll archives. "The last time it appeared, the empire suffered a great war."
A maid clutching a bundle of silk robes shivered. "And what of the lunar omens? My aunt told me the moonlight flickered like a dying flame last night."
Alina tightened her grip on the ledgers she was carrying. She did not believe in superstitions—not in her own world, nor in this one. But ever since she had arrived, she had felt something watching, something just beyond her grasp.
And now, it was making itself known.
Two nights later, the Grand Temple's rituals faltered.
Alina had been tending to simple duties in the outer courtyards when the disturbance rippled through the palace. A sudden gust of wind extinguished the sacred lanterns lining the temple gates, snuffing them out in an instant. The acolytes who had been performing the Rite of Heavenly Favor gasped, their voices rising in fearful whispers. The flame was never supposed to die during the ceremony—it was meant to burn until dawn, symbolizing the empire's unbroken prosperity.
Yet, the night swallowed it whole.
"The gods are displeased," an elderly priest murmured, his weathered hands trembling as he relit the offering braziers. "Something is coming."
Alina shuddered. This was more than whispers of rebellion. More than political unrest.
It was something greater.
By the following day, even the palace animals seemed disturbed. The royal stables were restless, horses neighing anxiously as if sensing an oncoming storm. Birds that once nested peacefully in the temple gardens took flight without warning, their wings slicing through the grey sky like fleeing messengers.
And then there were the whispers.
Alina heard them in the wind, in the rustling of silk curtains, in the distant murmurs of empty corridors. They were not human, nor were they entirely real—just faint echoes of something stirring beneath the surface of the world.
Yet, despite their incoherence, one thing was certain.
A storm was coming.
And whatever lay at the centre of it… was far closer than anyone realized.