The silence that stretched across the ballroom was not the cold, judgmental quiet usually reserved for a political scandal. It was something far heavier, a collective, breathless reverence that seemed to hum in the very air. Because for the past eight months, the Crown Princess had merely been a ghost in a golden cage.
To the people of Noctharis, Princess Ilaria of Caelwyn was less a woman and more of a saviour whispered in the halls of hospitals and the homes of the recovering. She was the princess whose marriage had acted as the final seal on a desperate prayer.
Most in this room had never seen her. They had only heard of the quiet, reclusive woman who had vanished into the palace depths the moment the wedding vows were spoken. So to see her now, not as a distant symbol of sacrifice, but as a living, breathing vision in midnight blue, was enough to make the most seasoned politicians forget their manners.
