The palace was never truly quiet. Even at dawn, when the chandeliers still glimmered with dying candlelight and the marble floors held the cold of night, something always seemed to be listening.

I was only a maid—one of many, dressed in gray and meant to be invisible—but I knew this place better than anyone. I knew which corridors swallowed sound, which doors hid secrets, and which windows were never opened, no matter how warm the day grew. Whispers clung to the walls like dust, and every servant had learned not to ask where they came from.

The prince lived at the heart of it all.

To the court, he was beautiful, distant, and untouchable. To the servants, he was something else entirely: a shadow moving behind silk curtains, a presence that made people lower their voices without knowing why. I had seen him only in fragments—gloved hands passing a goblet, dark eyes reflected in a mirror, the slow, careful way he walked as though the palace itself might betray him.

And now, for reasons I did not yet understand, I had been summoned to his chambers.

As I stood outside his door, a strange certainty settled in my chest. Whatever waited for me inside was not meant for a maid to witness—and once I crossed that threshold, there would be no returning to the quiet, obedient life I had before.