Chapter 1:The Heart That Weeped
The halls of the palace were never truly silent—there was always the faint murmur of
life, of footsteps, of distant laughter. But to Hellaria, silence was all she ever heard.
Even when the sun poured through the high stained-glass windows and the bells of
celebration rang in the capital below, her room remained dim, shut tight, forgotten.
“Do not touch the Queen,” the nursemaid whispered once when Hellaria was five, after
she had run to embrace her mother in joy. “Your hands are always dirty. You’ll wrinkle
her robes.”
She learned not to touch.
She learned not to speak.
The King, tall and sharp-eyed, never called her by name. “The second one,” he’d say,
when pointing her out in public. “The quiet one.”
And yet, Hellaria tried.
She stitched flowers into handkerchiefs, carved music into her soul, memorized
diplomacy and law, etiquette and swordplay—all in the hope of one word, one smile.
But when a diplomat spilled tea on his own cloak during a tense meeting, the Queen’s
gaze turned to Hellaria.
“How could you be so careless?” she snapped. “Do you know what this means for us?”
She was locked in her chambers for three days.
No one came.
Even when she was sick, her fever burning bright and her hands trembling, no healer
was summoned. Her cries were muffled by the thick curtains.
She watched snow fall through her window, wondering how something so cold could be
so beautiful.
Her sister Liana’s portrait still hung in the corridor, despite her disappearance. “If only
she were here,” her parents would say. “She would’ve understood.”
So Hellaria tried harder. Perfect grades. Perfect posture. Perfect everything.
And still, they did not see her.
Her heart didn’t just break—it dissolved slowly, like ink in water. Until all that was left
was the aching weight of wanting love.
