No Turning Back
Author: Cindy Chen
last update2025-03-12 21:22:53

The room was silent, save for the distant hum of the inn’s nightly murmurs beyond the thick wooden walls. The flickering candlelight from the street cast faint shadows through the window, stretching long and distorted against the floor.

Calen lay on the bed, eyes closed, his body heavy with exhaustion. The day had drained him, but his mind still churned with thoughts—the queen’s secret investigation, the palace’s strict routines, the courtesans’ whispers. But soon, fatigue overtook him, and he drifted into sleep.

Then—something changed.

A presence. Subtle, almost imperceptible. But not to him.

The door had been locked. Yet now, the latch shifted with unnatural silence, the handle turning ever so slightly. It was precise. Measured. The work of someone who had done this a thousand times before.

Calen’s instincts flared, his body reacting before his mind fully awoke. He didn't move—not yet. Instead, he kept his breathing steady, controlled, feigning sleep even as his muscles coiled, read
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