The Spark and the Seer
The great hall of Castle Lyria smelled of beeswax candles and crushed lavender, an aroma meant to soothe, though it did nothing to ease the ache spreading through Elara's shoulders. She had been standing for the better part of two hours, her spine held rigid beneath the weight of a velvet gown stitched with silver thread, each seam pulled taut enough to remind her, with every breath, that she was a princess first and a girl only in the privacy of her own thoughts.
Sunlight slanted through the tall arched windows, catching motes of dust that drifted lazily above the assembled heads of dignitaries from Aldenmoor, their emissary droning on about grain tariffs in a voice that seemed to stretch each syllable into an eternity. Elara let her gaze wander past his powdered wig, past the tapestries depicting long-dead kings in glorious battle, toward the sliver of green visible through the window—the very edge of the forest that bordered the castle grounds. She could almost smell the pine and damp earth from here, could almost feel the give of moss beneath her boots instead of the unforgiving stone beneath her slippers.
"—and it is with great respect that Aldenmoor proposes an extension…
