Kawaii princess's Arc

Chapter 15 of 54

She followed the runner's trail down the ridge and reached the broadcast grounds before dusk. A crowd already pressed around a tall stone tower where a bonfire roared through its arches. Faces flickered in the orange light, restless, waiting. Word had spread fast. They knew she would sing tonight, but no one knew what they would see. She slipped behind the curtain and stopped cold. The stage was a thin slab of crystal ice, ringed by silver spires that caught every spark from the fire. It was beautiful and bare. Her old white gown hung on a hook beside a cracked frosted mirror. Against the delicate stage, the heavy scales looked wrong. Four small notes could not carry a gown built for a louder song. She knelt by the mirror and worked fast. She stripped the scales from the gown and kept only the pale silk beneath. She tore strips of thin gauze from a practice veil and pinned them along the sleeves so they hung like frost threads. She pressed crushed ice flakes onto the bodice until it shimmered without weight. In the cracked glass, her reflection looked thin, quiet, almost breakable — like the song itself. She stepped onto the crystal stage as the bonfire dimmed. The crowd hushed. Her gown caught the silver light and seemed to disappear into the ice behind her. She sang the four notes. They drifted clear across the grounds, small and sharp, and the crowd leaned in as one. The look matched the song. But a scout near the front was already writing, and the head scout was watching from the dark.