Familiar Settings

I clasped my hands as I glanced up at the towering wall. 

The palace seemed darker than usual, more ominous than I last remembered. I flinched as the girl in front of me walked forward and entered through the large palace doors, and I trembled at the thought that my turn would be next. I gulped and looked down at my plain dress which I had put together from part of Zoie's maid skirt which she had lent to me before, and one of the blouses Reynard had brought me. I topped the look off with a wide brimmed hat under which my swept up hair- which had now become a strange mixture of lilac and fading black- seemed almost unnoticeable. 

"Nervous?" asked the guard in front of me as he held onto a long, pointy looking spear with the Klaern family emblem at the head of the blade, the one which looked like a fierce lion. 

I nodded, ducking my head.