Tauriel lay naked on her bed, her red hair fanned across the silk pillows, her pale skin glowing in the dim candlelight. The chamber was quiet—too quiet. The usual bustle of servants and guards had been replaced by a tense, waiting silence that pressed against her eardrums like water pressure.
The Queen had returned and Tauriel was bothered.
She had no idea why the Queen had left. No idea where she had gone or what she had done during those twenty years of absence. The Queen offered no explanations, no greetings, no warmth. Just cold, absolute orders.
Tauriel had complied. She had no choice. But every fiber of her being screamed against it. Decades of work. Decades of breeding programs, experiments, and torture—all of it erased in a single night.
She felt everything she had worked for slipping away.
And she couldn't question the Queen.
