Palace life was a beast with a thousand eyes—and Elara felt them all, even when her back was turned.
Her footsteps didn't just echo anymore. They accused.
Where she once moved unnoticed, now whispers followed her like a curse. The courtiers didn't speak in words they spoke in narrowed glances, in sudden silence when she passed.
"She looks too ordinary," someone murmured once, not knowing she heard.
"She's dangerous," another whispered. "Or worse she's powerless."
They didn't know which frightened them more.
And Elara? She was stuck between being the servant no one remembered and the Chosen no one dared believe in.
She stood in her new chambers a palace room too large for a single soul, steeped in velvet and marble, lined with secrets that pressed like a second skin.
She touched nothing. Not the embroidered robes laid out like offerings. Not the fruit arranged like crown jewels. Not the scrolls sealed with royal wax.
"Why are you giving me all this?" she had asked the steward on the first night.
He didn't blink. "The Stone chose you. We serve the Stone."
"But none of you look like you believe it."
His eyes had flinched. Just once.
"The palace doesn't run on belief, my lady. It runs on fear."
And fear it turned out was everywhere.
She wandered the halls at night, face hidden beneath her hood, memorizing every crack in the stone, every hallway that echoed wrong.
Behind one tapestry, she found a hidden door. Behind that, a stairwell spiraling into pitch-dark corridors.
She lit a candle. She didn't hesitate.
She wasn't escaping.
She was watching.
On the third day, her chambermaid Ana, young and lively spoke while scrubbing the hearth with raw, cracked fingers.
"You shouldn't walk alone. Not in this place. Not anymore."
Elara raised a brow. "Why? Is something watching?"
Ana paused, cloth frozen mid-scrub. "Everything's watching. Even the stone."
Elara moved closer, kneeling. "Do you believe it? That I'm the Chosen?"
Ana didn't look at her. "Does it matter? The court thinks you are. That's enough to make them love you, or gut you."
Elara stared at the fire. "Let them try."
Ana's voice dropped. "They won't try to kill you. Not directly. That would make a martyr. No, they'll do worse. They'll break you. Twist you. Make you doubt yourself until you hand your power back willingly."
Elara went still. "Then they'll be disappointed."
Ana's lips curled, just slightly. "Then maybe you really are Chosen."
That night, Elara couldn't sleep. Her thoughts burned too loud.
She scribbled questions in the dark. What does it mean to be chosen? Why me? What power? What price?
She folded the scraps and tucked them in the cold fireplace like offerings to a god she wasn't sure existed.
On the sixth night, a note slid beneath her door.
No sound. No footsteps.
Just silence and that slim, trembling piece of parchment.
She lit a candle with shaking hands. Read it.
"They fear what they can't control.
But you? You were never meant to be controlled.
Keep your eyes open. M"
She read it twice.
Then again.
Then she smiled, not because she felt safe.
But because someone else was playing the game.
She folded the note and slipped it into the lining of her cloak.
Later, at the mirror, she didn't study the starlight robe clinging to her frame. She studied her eyes sharp, unreadable, unafraid.
The girl from the servant's quarters was gone.
In her place stood something harder. Quieter. Ready.
She didn't know who M was.
But she knew this:
The walls had ears
And Elara was done whispering.