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panic spread through the palace like wildfire.
what began as a whisper among the staff quickly escalated, spreading from one servant to another, until it reached the highest levels of the court. the princess was missing. it was a ripple of worry that soon turned into waves of full-blown alarm, crashing against the usual calm of the royal household, disrupting their normal routines.
it had all started with a simple discovery-a maid, arriving with the evening's medicine, found the princess's room empty. the bed was untouched, yet sketches and fabrics lay scattered across the room. a book sat open on the window seat, its pages fluttering in the breeze from the open window. everything was quiet, unnaturally so, as if the vibrancy of your life had vanished with you.
word spread quickly. what began as hushed whispers among the staff, their voices laced with growing anxiety, soon reached the palace guards, the ones responsible for your safety. normally calm and reserved, they were thrown into a state of disarray rarely seen within the palace walls.
the palace, once orderly and quiet, erupted into chaos. guards searched every room, each hall, and every corner of the vast grounds, leaving no stone unturned as per the king's orders. every step they took was filled with mounting urgency.
outside the palace, the capital city began to stir as well. citizens watched in stunned silence as a company of knights thundered through the city gates, their armor gleaming in the moonlight. rumors, fueled by fear and uncertainty, spread like wildfire among the people. the quiet streets became alive with gossip and speculation, rivaling the noise of festivals.
meanwhile, in the bustling night market, kinich navigated the crowds with you by his side. the feeling in his gut had changed from the usual calm before a fight to something much worse-an unsettling sense that trouble was brewing. the kind of trouble that would find him, no matter how carefully he tried to stay hidden.
as you both moved through the crowd, kinich caught snippets of conversation from vendors and passersby. a merchant, his voice low, described the frantic scene at the palace gates. a group of women, their faces lined with worry, whispered about the missing princess. "who will perform miracles for us now?" one asked, her concern less for your safety and more for what your absence meant for them.
