The palace no longer sang.Gone were the music, the laughter, the echo of servants bustling through sunlit corridors.Now, silence ruled — heavy and suffocating, broken only by the soft creak of doors and the distant toll of bells that mourned what was not yet lost.Daphne had survived.But she had not returned unchanged.She awoke three days after the poison, breath shallow, body weak, her mind veiled in fog. The scent of herbs clung to her skin, and the light that filtered through the curtains felt too bright, too sharp.Zerach was there, as always, sitting motionless beside her bed. His eyes — usually molten gold — were dark now, rimmed with sleeplessness. When she stirred, he rose at once.“Daphne,” he whispered, and her name cracked like prayer on his lips.Her voice was barely a breath. “You… stayed.”“Always,” he murmured, taking her hand and pressing his lips to it. His touch trembled — a rare thing for the Horned King. “I thought I’d lost you.”“You almost did,” she said fain
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