Fear overtook her features with startling speed.
"No..."
She shook her head frantically.
"I'm not Liora."
The words stumbled over one another, disconnected and uncertain, each sentence seeming to belong to a different thought before abandoning it halfway through.
"That's not me..."
She laughed suddenly.
The sound startled everyone inside the chamber.
It contained no happiness.
No amusement.
Only fracture.
"I'm the princess..."
Her lips stretched into a smile so bright and unnatural that it unsettled every person watching her. It remained for only a heartbeat before dissolving as quickly as it had appeared.
"Hahaha..."
The laughter echoed softly through the room.
"I'm the princess..."
Her eyes drifted toward an empty corner of the chamber.
"They chose me..."
The words emerged with the innocent certainty of a child repeating something she had once been praised for believing.
"I'm special..."
Then the expression vanished entirely.
