Lyander Wolfhart 14    

In the days that followed, Liora found herself allowed to return to the waterfall—but now, it was on their terms.

At first, it felt like a mockery of freedom. She was given a strict schedule: one hour at dawn, when the mist still clung to the treetops and the world was quiet. A servant would accompany her halfway, then turn back just far enough to give the illusion of privacy—though she knew she was being watched. Always.

Still, she took what she could get.

She bathed under the icy water in silence, her body shivering with each plunge beneath the falls. But it wasn't the cold that unsettled her—it was the feeling that something was shifting, slowly, like a tide turning.