The prince began tightening security around the entire palace, ordering the immediate interrogation of all servants to find any thread that could lead to the truth.
It didn't take many hours before crucial news reached his ears.
Someone had spotted the suspicious maid sneaking near Dalirina's quarters on the exact night of the incident.
The prince went to interrogate her himself. Under his heavy, suffocating pressure, she broke down entirely... and with her, all the lies collapsed.
She confessed everything.
Without a single hesitation, Fairo confronted Nazar.
The confrontation was intensely quiet—charged with an underlying rage and profound disappointment.
He said sharply: "After all the memories we shared? She was your closest friend! She was raised with us like a sister... Why?"
Nazar replied, her voice practically dripping with raw scorn: "She's just a stupid maid, always seeking attention. Even you... even you fell in love with her! If you see her as a sister... I don't. She will always be a maid with no family, no lineage."
He looked at her with a look of pure contempt—an expression no one had ever seen on the gentle prince before.
Then he spoke, his voice quiet but cutting like a blade: "Why this hatred? You are not the Nazar I once knew. As much as I loved you... I can hate you a thousand times more for your actions."
Nazar lifted her eyes to him, her voice trembling violently with a mixture of anger and bitterness: "Do you love her that much? What does she have that I don't? And still... you loved her and left me! Even though everyone thought we were perfect together."
Fairo answered coldly, his calm absolute and lethal: "Can't you see the difference? … She is far better than you. If she were in your place, she would have never done something so vile. I loved you like a sister. But now... I truly hate you."
Then, he left her standing completely alone, wrapped in a silence as heavy as hatred.
He walked toward the heavy oak door… where Dalirina was already standing.
He froze, surprised to find her there, tears of absolute heartbreak staining her pale face.
She said in a quiet, trembling voice: "I never thought someone I called a sister… would do this to me."
He stepped closer, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her gently into his chest: "I won't let you down… and I will never betray you. I promise."
Later that day, her innocence was proven before the entire royal court—without revealing that Nazar was the true architect behind the scheme.
The maid was promptly expelled from the palace forever.
Dalirina thanked the prince, and the way she looked at him changed completely… it was a gaze filled with deep gratitude and a trust stronger than ever before.
His place in her heart rose significantly—just as it did in the eyes of everyone in the realm.
As for Nazar, she became utterly shunned—both by Dalirina and by Fairo. For the very first time in her life, the princess began to feel truly isolated.
Yet, despite everything, her mother never stopped pouring fuel on the fire, pushing her deeper and deeper into the abyss of hatred and vengeance.
Between shadow and light, Nazar now stood at a dangerous crossroads...
One path led to absolute ruin, and the other to whatever remained of her fading humanity. Which would she choose?
Despite the fleeting laughter of palace life, Dalirina constantly tried to understand Nazar, trying to decipher the storms behind her cruel actions.
Yet, a silent void kept gnawing at her every single night.
A cold routine, a creeping boredom slipping into her heart like toxic smoke, and a deep sense of frustration filled every day spent away from Elinor.
The questions began to whisper in her mind like ghosts...
Does she miss me? Has anyone visited her? Has she eaten? Is she just as lonely as I am?
And then, quietly... the dangerous idea began to bloom.
"Maybe I should go. Just once. Just to see her face again."
Between longing and resolution... there remained only one final decision left unmade.