The first tear touched the soil, and the entire garden went silent.

Every head turned toward the voice, a wave of collective disorientation rippling through the court. The parting crowd revealed a figure so starkly out of place that she seemed like a ghost from another world.

Ariadne stood near the heavy iron gates, her frame slight against the towering stone pillars. Her dress was an assemblage of faded, patched cotton, the color of weathered stone. Her shoes were worn down to the thin leather, caked with the dust of the lower city’s unpaved alleys. Her hands, resting nervously at her sides, were small, calloused, and roughed by endless labor in the royal laundries.

She possessed no jewels, no magical talismans, and certainly no noble lineage to speak of. Her entire worldly wealth could have been bought with a single copper coin.

For a second, there was absolute, stunned silence. Then, laughter erupted.

It started as polite titters among the younger duchesses behind ornate fans, quickly swelling into open, cruel mockery. Lady Seraphina covered her mouth, her shoulders shaking with open derision.

“Look,” Seraphina sneered, loud enough for those around her to hear. “The castle scullery has leaked. Does the dirt think it can groom a king?”

Ariadne flinched, her chin dropping toward her chest. Her cheeks burned with a hot, agonizing shame. Every instinct screamed at her to turn back, to flee through the iron gates and back to the damp, anonymous safety of the washhouse where her existence hurt no one.

Yet, her feet refused to move backward. Her eyes were drawn inexorably toward the center of the garden, where the broken flower stood under the gaze of a hundred mocking judges.

King Julian watched her intently. While his courtiers laughed, the king noted something unusual in the girl’s posture. She was not looking at him, nor was she looking at the crown resting upon his brow. Her entire focus was locked onto the dying plant with a strange, aching intensity.

“Let her pass,” Julian commanded.

The low murmur of disapproval died instantly under the sovereign’s tone. The nobles parted, pulling their expensive silks away as if Ariadne carried a plague, leaving a wide, clean lane for her to walk.

Ariadne walked forward. Each step on the polished marble felt like walking across glass. The whispers scratched at her back like thorns, but she kept her gaze fixed on the earth. When she reached the flower bed, she did not stand tall like the noblewomen before her. Instead, she sank directly into the dirt, her worn knees pressing into the soil without a second thought for her ruined dress.

Up close, the flower looked even worse. It smelled of dry dust and ancient rot.

Ariadne reached out a trembling hand. Her calloused fingers brushed against a withered, gray leaf.

“Don’t touch it, filthy thing,” a lord muttered from the sidelines.

Ariadne ignored them. She closed her eyes, leaning her forehead forward until it nearly touched the fragile, bent stem. She did not bring water, nor did she recite ancient incantations. She simply breathed in the scent of the dying earth, and in that quiet moment, something shifted within her heart.