The palace was a strange, empty place now. The halls that had once bustled with life and energy seemed desolate, the echoes of footsteps the only sound in the vast, cavernous spaces. Isabelle moved through them like a ghost, her body present but her mind far, far away. She felt disconnected from everything, as if she were watching herself from a distance, a spectator in her own life.
She had to decide.
Vaughn's words echoed in her head, a relentless refrain that she couldn't escape. Three days. She had three days to make a choice that would define the rest of her life, the rest of Nevremia. The weight of it was crushing, suffocating, a constant pressure that made it hard to breathe, hard to think.
But she had to. She knew she had to. She couldn't stay like this forever, lost in the fog of her grief and indecision. She had to pull herself together, for the sake of her people, for the sake of her empire.
And so she tried.
