The grand ballroom of the High Court glittered like a jewel box come to life, awash in golden candlelight and the shimmer of enchanted chandeliers that floated above like captured stars. Gossamer drapes veiled the arched windows, and the scent of night-blooming jasmine curled through the air, mingling with the melodies of faerie musicians playing lutes strung with spider silk. Courtiers twirled in silks and velvets, their gowns studded with opals and thread of moonlight, wings fluttering and laughter ringing like bells.

In the center of it all, Lady Asha, resplendent in crimson layered over shadow-black lace, held court among the gathered royals. She spoke with easy elegance to princes and princesses, her voice like honeyed poison, charming and commanding all at once. Her golden eyes never once glanced toward the farthest corner of the ballroom, where her son, the young Prince Cardan, sat on his grandmother’s lap.

Cardan was a beautiful, wild little thing — his hair a mess of inky curls that caught the candlelight, his small velvet tunic slightly rumpled. His tail, long and black with a tufted tip, lashed agitatedly against his grandmother’s skirts. His ears, sharp and expressive, had flattened back, a sign of his growing distress. He was tired. The music was too loud, the lights too bright, and his stomach ached with hunger. Worse still, when he glanced around the room with wide, amber eyes, he couldn’t find her — the one person whose attention he craved most. His mother.

She was nowhere to be seen.

A soft hiccup escaped his throat. Then came the tears — quiet, ashamed, and unnoticed in the swirl of opulence. They slipped down his cheeks, glistening like dew, his face flushing in frustration and sadness. He squirmed, but his grandmother, aloof and rigid, barely noticed. No soothing words. No comfort. Just the distant murmur of gossip and the clink of goblets filled with starlight wine.

And so, in a ballroom fit for dreams and decadence, the little prince sat, alone in a crowd of a thousand, longing for a mother who had long since turned her gaze elsewhere.