Elara's POV
The morning came faster than I expected.
I had barely slept. The maps and the plans and the thoughts of Kaelen and Lena and the child growing inside me had chased each other in circles through my mind until the first gray light began to creep through the windows. But when the knock came at my door, I was already dressed. Plain clothes. A hood that I could pull forward. No crown, no jewels, nothing that would mark me as anything other than what I was pretending to be.
The guard outside looked at me strangely when I stepped out. I didn't give him time to ask questions. I just walked, and he followed, and somewhere between my chambers and the eastern gate, I lost him in the crowd of servants moving through the lower corridors. It was easier than it should have been. No one looked twice at a woman in plain clothes with her hood pulled forward. No one expected the queen to be walking through the servant passages at dawn.
