CHAPTER 3: The Lonely Rose In The Tower

The days blurred into years, as if time itself had forgotten the little girl who lived high up in the cold, empty tower.

Rozena.

She was no longer just an infant swaddled in silence. She was now a growing girl with pale rose-colored hair that glowed faintly under the weak sunlight that barely reached her window.

Her golden eyes, though once bright, now held the quiet stillness of someone used to waiting. Waiting for something that never came.

She didn't have much.

She didn’t wear dresses sewn with fine silk like the daughters of noblemen. She had only two gowns, both a little too big, the sleeves always falling over her wrists.

Her slippers were worn at the edges, and there were days her feet ached from walking barefoot inside the tower when they tore. The nanny assigned to her; silent and distant—did what she was told, nothing more. She fed her. Dressed her. Kept her alive. But never hugged her.

Despite that, Rozena knew that she cared for her.

Rozena learned to smile at her reflection in the cracked mirror.

She taught herself to braid her own hair, sitting quietly by the window where the light was soft and golden at noon. She hummed lullabies she heard from the maid's whispers, even if no one ever sang her to sleep.

She learned to clean her own room when the maid wouldn't. Sometimes, when she spilled her porridge, she would cry quietly, not because of the mess but because she knew she'd be scolded, and not comforted.

She learned how to speak, how to write her name, and a few other things from the maid who was instructed to teach her only the basics. But she didn’t learn stories, or poems, or the names of places beyond the palace. She didn’t know what laughter sounded like among friends, or what kind of flowers bloomed in the royal fields during spring. She had no books, only scraps of paper she would scribble on, pretending they were letters she would one day send to someone who would care.

In those letters, she sometimes wrote to a person she never met.

"Dear Father…" they began. She didn’t know what else to say after that.

She didn't know what being a daughter was supposed to feel like.

No birthday celebrations. No gentle hands patting her head. No familiar voice calling her name with love. She knew her name was Rozena, but she didn’t know what it meant to be someone’s child.

Yet despite everything, she didn't grow bitter.

She was... quiet.

Kind.

Careful with her words. Careful with her thoughts. But deep inside, there was always something loud in her chest, something like a wish wrapped in pain. Like a thorn buried too deep in a petal.

She often looked outside her window, where the skies stretched endlessly and the trees danced with the wind. There were times birds would rest on her windowsill. She’d whisper to them, giving them names. Telling them about her dreams. Even if they never replied, she believed they listened.

She had a small wooden doll, carved for her when she was three. She named it Rosie, after the mother she never met. It was the only thing that belonged to her entirely. The paint on the doll had faded over time, but Rozena always kept it close to her bed, as if afraid it would vanish like everything else.

When the nights grew too cold and the storms returned, the same kind that raged on the day she was born, Rozena would cover her ears and curl into herself.

The wind outside howled like wolves. Lightning flashed against the sky. And she would whisper the only name she truly knew.

"Father."

A word she never spoke out loud unless she was alone. It was a secret she kept in her heart, one that warmed her as much as it haunted her. It was both her pain and her hope.

She didn’t know what kind of man he was. Only that he had once looked at her and named her. That was enough to keep the wish alive.

Maybe one day, he would look at her again.

Maybe this time, he wouldn’t look away.

Rozena never knew what love was. But she still believed in it.

Even when no one told her how it felt.

Even when she only learned the basics, and the world remained something she could only see from a single tower window.

She waited.

She hoped.

She lived.

Even when it felt like the world had forgotten she was ever born.

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