I stepped out of the ballroom and kept walking. I didn't know where I was going, and honestly, I didn't care.
My feet carried me down corridors lined with golden sconces and portraits of ancestors I didn't recognize, past servants who bowed and stepped aside without meeting my eyes, through doors that opened before me like they were afraid to make me wait.
The whispers faded behind me, the weight of a hundred stares finally lifted from my shoulders, and I felt something in my chest loosen — not relief, exactly, but something close.
Something like the quiet after a storm.
I wandered through the palace like a ghost, turning left at random and right at random, walking until the corridors grew quieter and the sconces grew further apart and the portraits on the walls were replaced by windows that looked out over dark gardens.
Eventually, I found an open door that led outside and stepped through without hesitation.
