The breakfast table is a painting.
Someone spent hours arranging it—the silver gleaming like mirrors, the porcelain so thin the light passes through, the food set in careful compositions.
Warm breads glisten with butter. Fresh fruit is carved into shapes that belong in museums. Eggs rest in silver dishes, prepared three different ways—each one perfect. Meats curl on platters like sleeping snakes.
Steam rises. Scents drift across the table—butter and honey, roasted things, spices I can't name. Scents that should make my stomach growl.
My stomach doesn't.
Extra special.
Because of their prince.
I sit with my arms crossed tight against my chest. My gaze drifts across the table—the extra-perfect preparation, the flowers placed too carefully between the dishes, the extra glass set beside the extra plate.
For him.
Always for him.
Mom and Dad's eyes are on me. I feel them like weights—staring, waiting. They want to talk. I know it.
I don't look at them.
