Pearl’s POV
The hall fell into a thick, choking silence as the Imperial Head Scholar stepped forward. His expression was carved from stone, lips a grim line as his gaze fixed on me sharp, unforgiving.
“Perin,” he said, his voice steady and heavy, slicing through the tension like a blade. “You stand before this council not as a student… but as a traitor to the Empire. Evidence has been presented, damning and irrefutable. You are hereby accused of treason against the crown.”
The words crashed into me like a tidal wave. The crowd gasped. Whispers burst like embers across dry grass.
Traitor…?
My feet felt frozen to the floor. The weight of the accusation bore down on me harder than anything I’d faced before. Not because I was guilty but because I knew, deep in my bones, that someone had t
