Chapter 43
Evelyne hadn’t meant to walk so far. But the castle had grown too loud with silence, and her father’s stillness had said everything she could no longer bear to hear. So she stepped out into the gravel path that wound through the castle gardens, where she could breathe.
Ravik had lied. She had given him the chance, one simple opening to prove her wrong.
He hadn’t taken it.
And her father had let it happen. Again.
The sunlight was too bright. The air was too clean. Everything felt dishonest in the way only beauty could.
Vesena joined her at the gate without being asked and followed a step behind. Neither spoke.
The garden stretched in perfect order: hedges trimmed to submission, fountains glinting as if nothing had ever gone wrong here. Her charcoal gown caught the light like ash instead of silk. Even her gloves felt tight, as though her body didn’t want to be dressed for performance anymore.
She made her way toward a smaller, more secluded section of the gardens, where a cluster of delicate white flowers swayed in the gentle breeze.
The blooms had taken root in this unlikely place, despite every warning from the castle gardeners that they would never survive.
Yet here they were, their pale blossoms standing defiant against the odds.
Her mother’s flowers. Selanthers.
They had been brought from Lysitha, one of the few things her father had ever given out of care. They were rare, fragile things, unsuited to the harsher climate of Edrathen, yet they had endured.
Just as her mother had, for a time.
The flowers had been planted at the base of an old statue: a tall, robed woman with her head bowed in sorrow, arms folded gently beneath draping sleeves.
The features were worn soft by weather and years, the once-ivory stone now grayer.
A long crack split one side of her face, ivy curling up from the base to cradle her broken profile like a secret.
No plaque remained. If there had ever been one, it had long since been claimed by time. But the selanthers still bloomed at her feet—quiet, persistent, and uninvited.
Evelyne reached out and traced the edge of a petal. She remembered plucking them, arranging them in a porcelain vase as the days waned into nights, when sickness had stolen the color from her mother’s cheeks.
She had been young then, barely able to reach the bedside without standing on the tips of her toes. Her mother had been everything to her in those days, telling stories of her homeland, her hands braiding her hair before bed.
Evelyne had promised she would visit Lysitha one day. Her mother had only smiled, her fingers brushing over Evelyne’s cheek in a touch so gentle it had felt like air.
“You will go far beyond, my little doe,” she had said.
And now, Evelyne supposed, that was true. She was not to go to Lysitha, but to Varantia. A land unknown. A future uncertain.
She thought of Ysara then. Evelyne had been twelve when her father announced he would marry again. The whispers at court had been swift and exacting: Rhaedor needed a son.
Ysara from house Lenvale was younger than Rhaedor by twenty years, bred in the hush of the Grimhollow Range where people worked in the mines.
And she was the one who made sure the selanthers were covered on frost nights.
A gust of wind stirred through the garden, lifting strands of Evelyne’s hair from her shoulders. She closed her eyes for a moment, inhaling the faint, cool scent of the blossoms.
Then she blinked hard, banishing the ghost of her mother’s touch. Grief could wait. Resolve could not.
Varantia would not ask her who she might have been. It would demand she become who she needed to be. And perhaps, Evelyne thought, that was the only real fortune she’d ever been given.
Those in power loved to speak of strength—as if they had invented it. As if it belonged only to the battlefield and the council floor, loud and lunging, draped in steel and declared with ink on treaties.
But Isildeth had been right.
Real strength lived in the moments no one noticed—the ones women had learned to master centuries ago, because they had no other choice.
Edrathen men believed they ruled. Perhaps they did, here and now, in obvious ways.
But Evelyne had watched something else unfold.
She had seen how power moved quieter than they realized.
Her mother—before illness hollowed her—had used it to convince a stubborn Council that Evelyne’s lungs would heal faster if she painted.
That was how the oils had arrived. That was how Evelyne had learned to breathe again.
Ysara never raised her voice. She didn’t have to. Her influence lived in the way Thalen was being raised—taught empathy, not just lineage. Encouraged to listen, not just speak. A future king who might ask better questions than the ones men answered with war.
That was the kind of person Evelyne wanted to become. Not the loudest voice in the room, but the one who speaks for those who can’t—dead or alive.
She straightened, lifted her chin, and turned from the garden with Vesena at her side. They rounded the path near the barracks—and halted.
The sudden clash of wooden staves and laughter spilled into the path like a gust of summer wind.
Inside the training yard, framed by the low wooden fence and the echo of shouted instructions, was Alaric.
Sweat-slicked and laughing, hair pulled into a loose half-knot with sunlit strands falling rebelliously over his forehead. He spun a stick with infuriating grace.
Thalen was holding another stick, cheeks flushed, stance too wide, eyes full of admiration. Alaric corrected him gently, stepping in with a patience Evelyne had never witnessed from any soldier in this castle.
Leaning against the fence like a very disgruntled cat forced into sunlight, was Cedric—arms crossed, expression unreadable.
Thalen spotted her first and broke into a sprint.
“Evie!” he called, breathless and beaming. He barreled into her skirts, then stepped back sheepishly, cheeks flushed. “I already know the basics. Prince Alaric says my stance is very promising!”
“Does he now?”
“Mm-hmm.” He nodded so enthusiastically his curls bounced. “I learned about balance and weight and how not to stab myself!”
“Truly, a well-rounded curriculum,” she murmured. “And where is your mother?”
“She’s resting. She said the light gave her a headache.”
“And your nursemaid?”
Thalen shrugged.
Evelyne sighed through her nose. For a castle run like a clock wound by iron teeth, their father had always allowed Thalen to tumble through its gears unchecked. She still couldn’t tell whether it was favoritism for the male heir or simply the soft foolishness of late fatherhood. Probably both.
He turned toward Vesena with sudden, princely gravity and bowed. “Lady Vesena. You look very nice today.”
Her heart tugged. He was growing up faster than she could hold onto.
Vesena, to her credit, didn’t laugh. “Thank you, Your Highness,” she replied with a small curtsy.
Alaric jogged up the path, breathless, hair damp at the temples, shirt clinging in ways no polite lady should have to notice.
“Princess,” he greeted, panting slightly. “Apologies. Your brother is surprisingly committed to stabbing me in the ribs.”
“Yes, he’s always been an overachiever,” Evelyne replied evenly, forcing her gaze to stay above the collarbone.
Alaric grinned wider. “If his fencing skills mature at this rate, I’ll be dead before the wedding.”
“I hit him once,” Thalen declared. “Almost in the thigh.”
Evelyne fought a smile, folding her hands neatly. “Do your sister a favor and aim a few inches higher next time.”
That earned a faint snort from Cedric.
She glanced sidelong at Alaric, who looked genuinely delighted, eyes crinkled with warmth. Thalen had always possessed the uncanny ability to bring people together. It was one of his most charming strengths.
She cleared her throat and turned back to her brother. “You don’t visit me as often as you used to.”
Thalen blinked in surprise. “I’m doing serious things now.”
“Ah. And I suppose that excludes your sister now?”
“Well,” Thalen hedged, “you don’t sweat or fall over dramatically when I hit you with a stick.”
Alaric made a show of rubbing his ribs. “A direct hit, to be fair. I may never recover.”
“You’ve been here a week and already corrupted my brother,” Evelyne murmured.
Alaric raised a brow, amused. “Should I not make a good impression on the family I’m about to marry into?”
“Making an impression is easy,” she said. “Making it last is the hard part.”
Their eyes locked. Briefly. Sharply.
Her fingers tightened on the fan’s edge. Cedric drifted toward the barracks, Vesena toward the water basin with Thalen in tow. In a breath, the yard belonged only to her and Alaric.
Evelyne remained by the fence, arms lightly folded. Alaric was still catching his breath; his body turned halfway toward her.
“How are you feeling today?”
She glanced at him sidelong. “Fine.”
He gave her the kind of look that said, without words, try again.
Her brows furrowed. “Is this concern, curiosity, or an attempt at seduction?”
He smiled faintly. “Why choose?”
She straightened. “If you’re trying to ask whether anything strange has happened recently, just ask it plainly. I don’t have patience for riddles today.”
“Alright,” Alaric regarded her for a moment longer. “Have you noticed anything… unusual? Feelings. Patterns that don’t fit.”
A cold thread slipped down her spine.
She shifted her weight slightly, the fan pressing tighter against her palm.
“You mean beyond the slow collapse of my trust in half the court?” she remarked lightly.
Alaric didn’t laugh. “Yes.”
“Is this about my dream?”
Alaric held her gaze. “Partly.”
“And the other part?”
“I’m worried.”
Evelyne said nothing for a moment. He always asked the strangest things. And this time, she wasn’t sure if it was about her or about something else he was chasing.