The Tower Library smelled of dry battles and stale victories.
I sat with the Queen at the hearth, where the flames hissed with soft, hushed triumph.
Outside, bells rang in celebration—Alina's formal ascent to Lady of the Court—but here, inside the stone-clad library, we celebrated a quieter victory.
Cracks had already begun to show.
Alina smiled too brightly now.Laughed too hard.Clung to the King's sleeve with a desperation that sharpened by the hour.
She was spinning herself dizzy, trying to hold on to a crown that was never meant for her.
"Patience, sweetheart," the Queen whispered, stirring her tea with a ring of silver. "It takes time to properly watch a rose expire."
I idly swung my feet, balancing a sugar cube on my knee.
"Should we give her a little assistance?" I asked, voice all innocence.
The Queen's smile flashed like a knife in the firelight."No. Let nature take its course. She will fall harder if no hand is there to catch her."
And so we waited.
Act One: The Masquerade Ball
The King declared a lavish ball to celebrate Alina's new position.
Masks, baubles, merriment—the kind of spectacle that gnawed at a girl raised on ashes and fear.
We dressed her in silk spun with wire-thin gold.Pinned a hundred borrowed jewels into her hair.Weighted her down with so much glittering finery, she looked like a child playing queen at her own funeral.
I wore frost, silver, and a smile that never touched my eyes.
And when Alina stumbled during the first dance—an ungainly, graceless fall into the King's chest—When her laughter rang false beneath the vaulted ceilings—When she confused the Duke of Windmere for the King himself, in her frantic delirium—
We simply stood by.
Watched as the court quivered with stifled laughter.Watched as the King's expression hardened, almost imperceptibly.Watched as the crown she coveted began, inch by inch, to slip from her grasp.
Act Two: The Invitation That Never Came
Weeks later, a royal hunt was proclaimed—a great privilege, a cherished tradition.
Alina's name was never mentioned.
A mistake, they said.A simple clerical oversight.
But when she arrived at the stables, breathless and resplendent in her finest riding habit—only to be politely turned away—When she stood frozen as the court rode past her in velvet and shining mail—When the King, already astride his stallion, gave her only a fleeting, puzzled glance—
We were there.
Perched high above on a stone balcony, grinning down like gods watching an aspiring star fall.
Act Three: The Last Petal Dropped
By the time the Night of Winter's First Frost arrived, Alina's hands trembled when she curtsied.
She still had the gowns, the jewels, the title—but none of them fit her anymore.
The King's patience, too, wore thin as ice beneath a stomping foot.
Every error—Every hollow smile—Every aching attempt to belong—
It chipped away at the fairy tale he had woven around her.
And when, at the Midwinter Feast, Alina spilled a goblet of spiced wine down the Queen's silk gown—not out of cruelty, nor even clumsiness, but sheer, desperate terror—the silence that followed was colder than any frost.
The Queen merely patted the stain with a linen handkerchief, her lips pressing into a thin, knowing line.
"Perhaps," she said softly, "it is time for new beginnings."
And the King did not argue.