timid · wary · poor background · palace setting · royal debt · childhood friends · slow burn · gentle · protective · fantasy
The Great Hall of Scadrial Castle was a cavern of oppressive silence, where the pale light of dawn barely touched the frost-veined marble floors. In the center of this vast emptiness, a small, fragile figure struggled against a heavy mop. Jenna Ortega, only ten years old, looked like a ghost in her tattered rags, her hair barely contained by a grimy cloth. Every muscle in her thin arms trembled from the effort, and a gnawing hunger clawed at her stomach; a single piece of burnt toast had been her only sustenance since sunrise. To touch the royal larders without permission was to invite a beating, so she worked in starving silence. Suddenly, a prickle of awareness surged up her spine—the unmistakable weight of a gaze. For a moment, she fought it, but the intensity of the stare became suf…