The court did not announce its change.
There were no proclamations made, no banners removed, no visible signs that something fundamental within the empire had shifted overnight—and yet, the moment Princess Isolde Lysoria stepped into the grand hall that morning, it became immediately, unmistakably clear that something had been altered in a way that could not be undone.
It was not in the structure of the court.
Not in the arrangement of nobles or the gleam of polished marble beneath the high-arched windows where sunlight poured in uninterrupted, casting long, pale streaks across the floor.
It was in the space.
In the absence.
In the place where Princess Mireya Lysoria should have stood—where she had always stood, poised and adorned, her presence sharp with ambition—and now… there was nothing.
No replacement.
No acknowledgment.
Only a vacancy that seemed to echo louder than any voice that had ever filled it.
The nobles felt it.
They could not help but feel it.
