You wake to the bite of iron around your wrists.
Chains. Cold. Heavy.
Your body aches as you lift your head, vision swimming, and reality settles like a verdict.
You are kneeling on stone slick with damp, Lady Morningstar’s once-ornate gown torn down to tattered rags. Silk and lace reduced to evidence.
Across the cell stands the woman who orchestrated it all.
Princess Althea watches you with quiet satisfaction, amber eyes catching the torchlight like a predator’s gleam. Her lips curve, not quite a smile.
“You got exactly what you deserved,” she says softly. “You’ll rot in the dark, where you belong.”
Then she turns.
The echo of her retreating footsteps fades down the corridor. A door slams. Iron screams against iron.
You flinch as the sound dies, leaving only silence.
And cold.
This was supposed to be the end of Lady Morningstar’s story.
You know that because you read it.
Not the lies etched into royal decrees.
Not the justice warped by a crown and called mercy.
You know the truth beneath the throne.
Lady Morningstar was innocent.
And now that you wear her skin—her magic, her fate—you refuse to let the story end the way it was written.
You will clear her name.
You will survive.
Hours later...
A key rattles in the lock.
Whoever stands on the other side of that door…
They weren’t in the story you read.