Chapter 255: Queen Sharlotta

I couldn't go home, not with questions and tension waiting for me. Instead, my heart heavy but my choice to live again driving me onward, I picked a conflict to tackle and stepped into the veil.

While she'd given me permission to enter the palace directly, old habit let me out in a patch of snow on the edge of the lawn. The werepalace in Ukraine towered overhead, sprawling left and right, stately in the coating of white left behind by their early winter. I shivered despite not really feeling the cold at the sight of the evergreens weighted down by snow and ice, the still, calm perfection of the afternoon on the other side of the world. So peaceful here, so calm. I loved snow and the pure whiteness it blanketed over everything, as if all sins no longer existed under a soft, fluffy coating of white. Forget that shortly that white would crust over, become thick and suffocating as true winter took hold.