The morning light filtered softly through the tall palace windows, touching everything with a gentleness Ava was still learning to accept. Only a day ago, she had been standing alone in rented rooms and borrowed lives; now she walked corridors that had once echoed with her own childhood laughter, even if she could not remember it.

After the temple visit, her grandparents did not send her back to rest. Instead, her grandmother took her hand and led her through a quieter wing of the palace—away from halls of portraits and into the family quarters, where walls carried warmth instead of grandeur.