Chapter 3: The Butterfly's Choice

The book snapped shut.

Anastasia stared at the silver letters embossed across its cover.

**The Winter Crown.**

Her trembling fingers traced the cold metal crown engraved above the title.

"...Survive until sunrise."

The words echoed inside her mind.

She swallowed hard. This wasn't a warning.

It was a countdown.

"Anna?"

Katya's concerned voice broke the silence. "Are you feeling dizzy again?"

Anastasia quickly hid the book beneath the blanket.

"N-No."

She forced a smile.

"I'm fine."

She wasn't. Nothing about this was fine.

Her heart hammered against her ribs as memories from the novel surfaced one after another.

Chapter One.

The Winter Banquet.

The East Corridor.

A conversation never meant to be heard.

A frozen bridge.

A dead maid.

Anna.

Every reader had forgotten her by Chapter Two.

Except Anastasia.

Because she had cried over that scene.

Not because Anna was important...

But because she wasn't. She had died without a single line of dialogue. Without anyone mourning her.

Without even a grave.

"...I'm not dying."

The whisper escaped before she realized it.

Katya blinked.

"What?"

"Nothing."

Anastasia stood, smoothing the wrinkles from her maid's uniform.

If she knew how Anna died...

Then all she had to do was avoid the East Corridor.

Simple.

Right?

The palace was even grander from the inside.

Endless corridors stretched beneath painted ceilings depicting emperors long dead.

Crystal chandeliers illuminated polished marble floors.

Portraits of forgotten nobles watched silently from gilded walls.

Servants hurried in every direction carrying silver trays, fresh flowers, embroidered tablecloths, and crystal goblets.

Everyone looked terrified. No one walked.

They rushed.

As though the palace itself punished those who moved too slowly.

Katya leaned closer.

"Don't stare."

"What?"

"The portraits."

"They say the former Empress hated servants."

Anastasia immediately lowered her eyes.

"...Right."

Even the superstitions matched the novel. Every detail felt painfully real.

Housekeeper Vera stood in the center of the servants' hall.

"The Winter Banquet welcomes more than four hundred guests tonight."

Her voice echoed through the room.

"Nobles."

"Foreign ambassadors."

"Military commanders."

"The Imperial Family."

A wave of nervous whispers spread among the servants. Vera's gaze swept across them.

"If anyone embarrasses the palace..."

She paused.

"...pray death finds you before I do."

Silence.

Absolute silence.

Then assignments began.

"Kitchen."

"Western Hall."

"Royal Library."

"Grand Ballroom."

Each servant stepped forward when their name was called.

Anastasia kept repeating one sentence in her mind.

Not East Corridor.

Please...

Not East Corridor.

"...Anna."

Her breath caught.

"East Corridor."

Everything around her seemed to stop.

No.

No.

This wasn't happening.

She slowly stepped forward.

"Y-Yes, Housekeeper."

Vera handed her a silver tray.

"Deliver refreshments to the eastern gallery."

The eastern gallery.

Not corridor.

Anastasia blinked.

She looked up.

"Excuse me..."

Vera frowned.

"What?"

"I thought you said—"

"I said gallery."

The housekeeper narrowed her eyes.

"Have you gone deaf?"

Anastasia quickly lowered her head.

"No, Madam."

"...Forgive me."

Relief flooded her chest.

She almost laughed.

She had remembered it wrong.

It wasn't the corridor.

It was the gallery.

She was safe.

Completely safe.

Hours passed in a blur.

Snow continued falling outside the palace windows.

By evening, the Winter Palace had transformed.

Thousands of candles illuminated the corridors.

Fresh white roses decorated every staircase.

Music drifted through the halls as noble carriages arrived one after another.

The banquet had begun.

Anastasia carried a silver tray toward the eastern gallery.

She exhaled.

"I survived."

Nothing had happened.

No secret meeting.

No murder.

Maybe...

Maybe changing even a small detail had altered the story.

She smiled for the first time that day.

Then—

Crash!

A young servant collided with her.

Crystal glasses shattered across the marble floor.

"Oh no!"

The servant turned pale.

"I'm sorry!"

"I'm so sorry!"

Anastasia knelt to gather the broken pieces.

"It's okay—"

She froze.

One shard had slid beneath a half-open door.

The East Corridor.

Her smile disappeared.

She knew that door.

She remembered it now.

Not the gallery.

The corridor was beyond it.

The conversation...

didn't happen in the gallery.

It happened in the private room connected to it.

"...No."

She reached for the glass shard.

Voices.

Someone was speaking beyond the door.

Low.

Calm.

Dangerously familiar.

She couldn't hear the words.

Only fragments.

"...tonight..."

"...the Crown Prince..."

"...before midnight..."

Her blood turned to ice.

This was it.

The scene.

The one that killed Anna.

She jerked her hand back.

"I have to leave."

Now.

Immediately.

Forget the glass.

Forget the tray.

Forget everything.

She rose to her feet—

The door creaked open.

A shadow stretched across the marble floor.

Someone...

was stepping out.

To be continued....

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