𝐕𝐀𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐈𝐀 | 𝐋. 𝐀𝐂𝐊𝐄𝐑𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐍

𝐈𝐈.𝐗𝐈𝐈𝐈

❝𝑵𝒐 𝒒𝒖𝒐𝒕𝒆 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒕𝒐𝒅𝒂𝒚 - 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒃𝒆 𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒔𝒐𝒐𝒏!❞
— 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬 𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐥𝐲

꧁꧂

"EXCUSE ME," Valen half-shouted over the string quartet, shouldering past a group of well-dressed noblemen. "Excuse me," she said again, this time shoving through a clique of giggling noblewomen with too much champagne in their veins; trudging through, fourteen different brands of perfume that varied in tackiness assaulted her nostrils, making Valen's head swim.

I should have stayed in the barracks. Valen had made the horrendous mistake of assuming that because it was Historia's coronation ceremony, things would be far from disastrous, but no—in the two and a half hours she'd been here, two people had already been carried out because they'd downed more liquor than they could handle, and the sons of a wealthy merchant had nearly killed each other in a drunken haze over something that happened over a decade ago. The same snobs who turned their noses at the working class for supposedly "lacking refinement" were brawling over inheritances on the luxurious carpets of the royal palace and spilling scotch all over their custom-ordered waistcoats. It was all too reminiscent of her days as a maid in the Stohess District, and it made Valen want to bash her head open against the ballroom's flowery wallpaper.

There, she thought, a hint of relief trickling through her wearing anxiety. The doors to the outside finally came into view: two shiny panels of cut glass framed by a glossy white door frame with tiny flowers engraved on it. On her way, Valen accidentally bumped against an older woman dressed in tasteless purple silk, who tossed her a scathing look. Valen ignored her—those kinds of looks stopped bothering her years ago.

Opening the doors, she was kindly greeted by a mild evening gust. She'd stepped into the palace's grand garden, which sat under a darkening sky, orange fading to pink, pink fading to purple, and purple fading to royal blue. For the first time in hours, she felt her lungs expand and contract freely, felt the fog clouding her brain evanesce completely.

Valen allowed herself a minute to slow down and take in her surroundings. She'd been meaning to escape to the garden for a while, but between the too-tempting array of dishes laid out on the long table near the door and the bright-eyed journalists who incessantly fired question after question in her direction, it'd only been until now she could take a gander at the garden on her own. She drank in the whispering green walls that were the fringed hedges, the flowers planted strategically to create striking patterns. The sight vaguely reminded her of the town square she'd dreamt of months back in the Trost barracks.

Time's flowed by so quickly. Whether the square she'd dreamt of genuinely existed was beyond her—dreams tended to distort already existing things—Valen believed it was far superior to the garden she was standing in. As unreliable as dreams were, she still had faith in what she'd seen. In one way or another, they hinted at what her life was before her brain injury. All that was needed was time.