[Warning - Gore.]
Amara was heading toward the nursery to find Silas when her world ended.
One moment the palace corridors were alive with familiar sounds: distant servants changing shifts, quiet conversations near the evening kitchens, and the low hum of ether wards woven through marble walls.
Just minutes after, chaos tore through it.
It began with the scent of iris. Soft, pale, and expensive.
Noblewomen wore this scent to ceremonies, and priests used it in temple halls to make grief smell sweeter, those left behind clinging to life like the iris scent to the walls. It moved through the palace corridors like perfume at first, delicate enough that no one panicked.
The imperial palace usually smelled of saints' breath drifting in from the gardens, beeswax polished into old floors, ink, candle smoke, and the faint ozone that always clung to Goliath after he used ether.
This smell did not belong.
It moved through the corridor like perfume poured into a grave.
