Serena shuddered as the cold water ran over her skin, cutting through the lingering fog in her mind. She blinked rapidly and sneezed, the sound echoing faintly off the tiled walls of the bath chamber. A low sigh escaped her lips. The last few days had melted together like wax near a flame, blurry, warm, and hard to grasp. She could hardly recall much, only that every conversation felt like it was a test. She was constantly being examined and recorded. Every glance from a councilperson held a question, and none of them asked it aloud.
They knew.
Or at the very least, they suspected.
Her role—Crimsonclaw's ambassador, in name and presence—was no longer going to be a shadow tucked behind Charlotte or buried in garden walks. It had been implied by enough people that the performance had begun. Serena was a delegation of one, and the burden sat heavy on her shoulders. That would be the story that was going to be spun, anyway.
