Chapter 195

CHAPTER 37…. VALENTINA I noticed something was wrong long before anyone spoke of it. The palace had its own language. It always had. Stone remembered, corridors carried echoes of old intent, and magic— true magic, that never announced itself loudly. It moved like a breath. Like blood in veins. That morning, as I walked through the eastern gallery with Luciano resting against my shoulder, something in that language fell silent. It wasn’t dramatic. Just a feeling of… absence. One thread of awareness that should have been there simply wasn’t. Luciano shifted against me, his small fingers curling instinctively into the fabric at my collarbone. He didn’t stir, nor did he cry. But his breathing changed, just enough for me to feel it through my skin. A mother knows those things. A queen learns to fear them. And, I stopped walking… Sunlight poured through the moon-glass windows, painting the marble floor in pale silver. Guards stood where they always did. Servants passed at a respectful distan