Sleep had abandoned Sanya long before dawn kissed the horizon. Her body lay in silken comfort, cradled by the decadence of the palace bed, but her soul wandered-unsettled, craving answers. The images from the night before clung to her like cobwebs spun in her mind: flashes of claws, golden eyes gleaming through the dark, the blood-red moon. They pulsed behind her closed eyelids, refusing to be dismissed as dreams. No... they had been too vivid, too visceral. And the king's evasiveness-his carefully chosen words-had only deepened the gnawing itch beneath her skin.
Unable to contain the storm within, she rose. The palace was still asleep, resting beneath a velvet blanket of indigo sky. Silent corridors bathed in moonlight greeted her as she padded barefoot into their depths, wrapped in a shawl of soft cotton that barely shielded her from the biting chill.
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