Veil of the Dusken Rose - #ambw (18+)

21장 || Moonlit Confessions

Authors pov

Uhn Yuhn found herself alone in the calmness of her room that day as the world outside seemed to fall into a stillness. Her gaze wandered off lost in contemplation engrossed by the writing that adorned the document she had read earlier.

Her fingers absentmindedly reached for her lips unconsciously nibbling on her nail—a habit that only emerged when her mind was immersed in thought. There was something, about the text, a sense of familiarity that gently pulled at the corners of her memory with an indescribable persistence.

With a sigh that carried more questions than relief, she leaned back against the cushion, beneath her.

Earlier that day the paper had felt significant beneath her fingertips. Where had she seen it before? The characters seemed to narrate a piece of her past, but the connection remained  shrouded in the fog of half-remembered encounters and shadowed corners of her duties in the palace.

Her eyes drifted to the window, where the soft light of the evening promised the solace of the approaching night. Yet the comfort it offered was thin, for the unease that knotted her brow was not easily soothed by starlight or the gentle caress of the night breeze. As much as she was trying to ignore it, she knew she wouldn't rest until she threaded everything together.

She walked over towards her things and looked through her belongings, it was there in a container, she found some papers, trying to pin down the elusive connection.

It was more than the style of writing or the formal language that linked the past to the present. It was the seal at the bottom-a seal she had seen only once before but had left an indelible mark upon her mind.

While looking around, the door to her room creaked slightly, and she hastily covered the document with her sleeve, her heart suddenly racing. It was only a maidservant, coming to announce dinner, but Uhn Yuhn's reaction was a hint to the growing thoughts that had wound itself around the palace, it was taut and ready to snap as if a drawn bowstring.

After the maid had left, Uhn Yuhn's gaze returned to the concealed paper. She would have to take this to the crown prince. But not just yet. She thought. It wasn't hers to begin with.

The document that Uhn Yuhn couldn't disentangle from her memory was indeed a specter from her past, one that was intimately linked with her most harrowing moment of despair and her subsequent flight towards freedom.

As a young girl in the service of a powerful, rather merciless family, she was often invisible—a ghost drifting through the halls, witnessing the power without a voice to speak of them.

One evening, an accident with scalding water had left her in agony, and in the ensuing chaos, she had overheard her masters' frantic concerns about a document. One that promised their seat in the court.

Curiosity and instinct had driven her to pocket the paper in the commotion, a document, the very one they claimed could shift the balance of power if it ever left the estate. That night, the estate was visited by an visitor from the palace.

Hidden in the shadows, Uhn Yuhn listened as the discussion turned into a violent quarrel, the air festered with anger and the unmistakable clink of drawn steel. It was amidst this tumult that she saw her chance—an opportunity to escape not just her immediate tormentors but the life of subjugation they represented.

With the document concealed within her clothing, she slipped into the night, propelled by fear and adrenaline. The papers she now held were an trace of that turning point.

With her head bowed low, Uhn Yuhn's shoulders shuddered ever so slightly, betraying the boiling of sorrow brewing within her. She sat in the corner of the room, her eyes hidden by the shadow of her knees, lips caught between her teeth in a desperate bid to quell the quivering that threatened to unleash a sea of unshed tears.