Chapter 20
Chapter
Twenty
Elara
By the time I reach my chamber, the king’s cloak hanging damp and heavy around my underdress, my mind is a storm I can’t calm. One of them—Queen Ophelia, I think—gave him the heir, Mother’s words whirl inside my skull. Or maybe it was the one before her?
But what if both birthed heirs?
How else does this make sense?
Cloak abandoned on the chair, I strip out of my soaked underdress with trembling, clumsy hands, barely noticing the chill on my skin. Stories from the palace changed like bed linens, Mother told me two nights before I left, leaving behind a people’s confusion thicker even than my own.
With a greenhouse that can’t possibly have been gifted to an allergic Ophelia, someone must have lied about the line of inheritance? The inscription itself never named Kael; it only said heir. Did they hide an older prince? Or bury one?
I drag on a dry shift, shove my arms into my bodice, and fasten ties with fingers that don’t feel attached to me. All these questions press against my temples from the inside with such force that I don’t know how to shake them. This might be a waste of my time and energy.
What if the answers change nothing?
But what if they change everything?
My shoes thud to the floor before I slip into them, one after another, as if they’re also impatient to learn the truth. Or maybe they’re just sick of tripping through shadows without knowing what casts them, same as me.
I leave my room, stepping into a corridor where the night is starting to thin, and turn toward the glow of a nearby lantern.
My feet know where I’m going long before my mind catches up.
I’m done begging books for help because their pages go missing.
And men? Their tongues curl whichever way they please—or not at all.
But blood?
Blood has no reason to lie.
Cold, quiet corridors lead me to the abandoned royal chamber. That stain under the rug has been gnawing on me since I first found it, and I’m done being chewed up.
“Elara.” Miss Hampshire’s voice snaps from the corridor, her lamplight swaying nervously as she stomps away from the king’s chamber toward me. “Do not bother going to the king.”
I wasn’t planning to. Not after what happened—or rather, what didn’t happen—in the spring. “What’s the matter?”
“Having him return from the spring? In this state? The last time I saw him like this was after his mother’s funeral!” Her brows tighten enough to pinch themselves, putting such a strain on her fat pustule I want to shift back a step in precaution. “Whatever have you done now, girl?”
My shoulders sag. That’s hardly something I can confess to this woman, and another scolding is the last thing I need right now.
No. What I need is answers.
“Truly, I don’t know, Miss Hampshire.” That’s exactly the problem: how I seem to know nothing about anything. “He found a pear and said it reminded him of his mother because she was allergic to it.” I pause, watching her face. “Could it be that?”
The hand tucked into her apron stills. For a beat, her eyes drift—past me, past the corridor, as if she’s turning over the past in her head and weighing its impact on the king’s moods like ingredients. “Queen Ophelia suffered many ailments.”
Oh, did she now?
Was a stepson one of them?
“Oh.” I let the word fall like surrender, like I’m only making sense of moods and memories the way any caretaker would.
My gaze drifts anywhere but her eyes, because looking too directly is how questions start to sound like accusations.
“That’s strange, then…” I add, lighter, as if it’s an afterthought that wandered in on its own.
“I thought I saw a plaque—out by the greenhouse—saying his father gifted it to his mother.”
Miss Hampshire’s attention returns to me, her gaze tilting, her shoulders going rigid.
Too rigid?
I swallow, careful to make it sound like confusion and not curiosity. “Maybe I misread it,” I say quickly. “Or maybe it wasn’t meant for her. I really don’t know what else could’ve upset him so.”
Miss Hampshire stares at me—a long, dismantling look that feels like it’s peeling back my skin to find the lie etched into my bones. I said too much, didn’t I? Took too much risk.
“His Majesty has locked himself in his chamber,” she eventually says. “If he calls, I will fetch you. Until then, we have no choice but to leave him be.”
He locked himself away.
Something in me folds, a slow collapse beneath the ribs. Appalling, he’d called himself in that cave, thinking I’d recoiled in disgust rather than this old fear braiding dread through my bones. Ugh…why am I so scared of this? Why did I act so stupid?
“Of course, Miss Hampshire.” My shoulders sag at my own words. Every time I gain an inch of closeness to Kael, two steps drag me back into the muck. “I’m truly sorry.”
There’s no nod, no formal dismissal when she turns away. Only a brief halt, where she looks over her shoulder back at me. “And Elara?”
“Yes?”
“Some secrets never get buried properly,” she says, her voice tight. “And while they may have learned to roam the palace quietly, those who are wise treat them as what they are: lies.”
She moves on, her half-hand ticking an eerily calm rhythm against her apron, her footsteps fading.
But the weight on my chest doesn’t fade. Her words hook into everything I started to question: missing annals, a plaque that doesn’t match, recordings that distort timelines.
My eyes lift to Kael’s door.
Leave him be.
Reluctantly, I turn away, toward the double doors of the abandoned royal chamber. Plenty of time to waste on the dead now that I’ve bungled the living, putting myself out of my caretaker’s job. Maybe temporarily. Maybe forever.
The door gives under my palm with barely a protest.
The receding moonlight mingles with the first hints of dawn, washing across the wooden floor. If there truly was an older prince, why erase him? Why hide books that might mention him? Who decided that the pages of his life shouldn’t be found? A king hiding his shame? A steward scheming his victory?
I walk straight to it.
The blood hides beneath the rug exactly where I left it—an ugly, dark stain peeking out from under expensive weave. My breath trembles as I drop to my knees and yank the edge back.
The smear blooms into view.
It’s bigger than I remember, sunk into the wood like a wound the floor itself couldn’t heal. Also incredibly neat. Barely any splatters—no violence, no struggle, no panic. Just a ritual, factual, and as clean-cut as this awful curse.
If the second queen—Queen Maeryn—died here, then Kael couldn’t have been present; he wasn’t even born yet. That means someone else stood in his place, someone older, someone whose memory has been stripped from the library, safe for Ophelia’s hysterics.
A recording left behind by accident? After all, the page had been hard to spot…
I stare at the stain until first light breaches the horizon, filtering in through one of the large, undraped windows. It casts a warm, orange ray over the stain, giving it the color of rust before it crawls under the fold of the rug, revealing a splatter I hadn’t noticed before.
No, not a splatter.
It’s too uniform for that.
Too neat around the edges.
My breath catches as instinct takes over. I hook my fingers under the rug and shove it farther with a rough, impatient sweep of my shoe. The fabric rolls back in a graceless heap, revealing a new part of the stain that chills the air in my lungs.
Not just any stain…
A handprint.
Slowly, so slowly, I lean forward and place my hand beside it, trembling fingers splaying for scale. It’s too small to belong to a king. Too small for a queen. It does, however, perfectly fit the hand of a child.
A prince.
Something inside me wilts with a silent, inward sound, like ribs curling around grief that isn’t my own. “How did I miss this?”
If I’d peeled the rug back properly the first time, shoved it aside like I meant it, I would’ve seen this. Clear as daylight.
I stare at the small, bloody handprint until my eyes burn. But Vale came in that day. Caught me snooping. And then he sat down, making it impossible for me to find it because…because…
He sat.
Right. There.
Hiding it?
No. No, that’s the sleepiness talking, the exhaustion. He sat wherever the rug fell. That’s all. I was flustered because he surprised me. Anyone’s weight could’ve landed here.
Except…
The moment I replay it, the details return sharper than they should. How he angled his body. How close he came that night. How, for the very first time, and after dismissing my curiosity and suspicions, he gave in. Offered to take me to the library.
Helping me?
Or distracting me?
Slow, rhythmic thud-thud-thuds stride through my memories, like polished boots striding around secrets and lies…
If anyone in this place knows how to walk quietly, it’s Vale. Dressed in silk and velvet inside a palace that runs out of thread. And wasn’t it fine cloth Miss Hampshire had warned me about?
My stomach turns. What if Vale isn’t just a liar? What if…what if he is the lie?
I clamp down on the idea before it can form a shape with a crown. No, I don’t get to go down that path just because I’m desperate for answers. Not until I can be certain.
Muscles twitch along my calves, forcing me to my feet. The rug folds at my shoes as I storm toward the door. I have to find him. Have to confront him.
The corridor yawns empty against the first hints of dawn that touch it. I stride forward, jaw set, heart hammering a furious rhythm against my sternum. The palace suddenly feels too big, endless hallways stretching out like a maze built to mislead.
I turn into the first room on the left. Push the door open with more force than needed. A chair, a cold hearth. Nothing else.
“Vale?”
No answer.
I march on, skirts snapping around my legs. Down one corridor, then another, poking my head into every room worth a glance. Sitting room: vacant. Storage chamber: empty. Linen closet: just dust and the smell of soap.
“Where are you?” I mutter, the anger in me spreading like heat under my skin, urging my feet faster, louder. Each step clacks against the stone floor. The sound ricochets along the corridors, sharp and accusing.
No guard comes.
Just sick servants who look away.
I descend a narrow set of stairs, half certain I’ll find him leaning against a wall, arms crossed, nonchalance in place. But the landing is barren, lamplit and lonely, aside from the occasional staff that stare at me from small, sleep-squinting eyes. Going to the kitchens probably.
The kitchens!
I follow the staff. Pass them, trailing to the scent of charred oak and grease. Inside the kitchens, knives tap halfheartedly against wood. Thin steam rises from a single pot. A few women stand hunched over their chores, sleeves rolled, eyes shadowed from too many mornings like this one.
Vale isn’t here.
Of course he isn’t.
Guess it’s a good thing I didn’t come here to find him. No, I came to find her—the only person who has seen me with him, the only person I can ask about him without risking the noose.
She pushes through the back door with an armful of kindling; the big-eyed girl, same slip of a thing as the night she startled at seeing me and Vale at the table. She nearly drops the bundle when she sees me blocking her path.
“Where is the steward?” I ask. “Where can I find him?”
Her brows pinch. “Who?”
“The steward, for fuck’s sake!” My tone is as sharp as that rageful heat biting into my empty stomach. “Where is Vale?”
Her face pales, just like before. Pupils widen. Breath hitches. The kindling in her arms trembles—not enough to spill, but enough to show her fear. “I—I’m not allowed to—“
“Where is the steward?!”
“Miss…t-the palace…” Her voice quivers. “There is no steward. We haven’t had one in years.”