Kawaii princess's Arc

Chapter 25 of 54

She stepped down from the glass and copper stage with her throat burning. Each breath scraped. The next broadcast bell would ring before dusk, and a cracked note on the feed would undo every mile she had walked. She needed silence, shelter, and time — and she needed them now. She dragged her cape past the broadcast lots until she found a small ice mound with a low arched tunnel. She crawled inside. The thick snow walls swallowed every outside sound. She set a wooden-stand hourglass at the mouth of the tunnel and turned it. White sand began to slip down the glass tube — her ticking deadline made plain. She opened a blue tin etched with frost patterns and placed a soothing herb lozenge under her tongue. She did not speak. She did not hum. She watched the sand fall and breathed through her nose. The rawness in her throat softened, slow as melt. When the upper bulb emptied, she crawled out. She swallowed once. The scrape was gone. Her voice answered clean when she tested a single low note into her palm. She walked toward the broadcast platform with the empty hourglass tucked under her arm — healed in time, but already late, the crowd murmuring as she climbed the steps.