Chapter 2 - THE PRINCE'S QUESTIONS
Captain Mara moved first.
“Your Highness, the archive is below the west wing. If the seal has been breached, we should take the girl to a secure room and summon the royal physician.”
“I am not ill,” Sofia said.
“No one said you were,” Mara replied. “But the palace has been waiting for this alarm for twenty-seven years. That makes you a person of interest whether you like it or not.”
“I'm beginning to understand that.”
Adrian folded his mother's parchment and returned it to his coat. “We go to the east antechamber. No one speaks to the court until we know what has happened.”
“And if the chancellor demands an explanation?” Mara asked.
“Tell him I am preparing one.”
The captain gave him a look that suggested this was not a complete answer, but she obeyed.
The east antechamber was a narrow room lined with bookshelves and old maps. Its windows overlooked the winter gardens, where frost silvered the hedges. A fire burned in a small grate. The room felt private, but Sofia noticed two doors and one concealed panel in the wall. A place designed for conversation, she suspected, and for escape.
Adrian gestured toward a chair.
Sofia remained standing.
“You said my mother was Elena Aurellian,” she said. “Where did you find that name?”
“In the archive. There are records of the family before the sentence. Marriage contracts, birth records, appointments to the royal household. Then the records stop. The final document claims that every surviving Aurellian was either executed or exiled.”
“Was my mother executed?”
“No death certificate. No burial record. No verified account of her execution.”
“So your court declared a family dead without proving it.”
“My father's court did many things it called necessary.”
“And you have spent six years searching?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you search for me?”
“I didn't know you existed. The archive listed Elena as unmarried and childless. That record was likely altered.”
Sofia let the silence stretch. She had learned that people often filled silence with the truth they were trying not to say.
At last Adrian added, “I am not asking you to trust me. I am asking you to tell me what you know.”
“I know that my mother never used the word Aurellian in front of anyone outside our home. I know she taught me to sew silver thread into the inside of my gloves. I know she burned letters every winter and cried afterward. And I know she made me promise that if anyone in a crown ever called me a traitor, I should ask what they were trying to hide.”
Adrian went still.
“Did she say why?”
“No. She died when I was sixteen. Fever, the doctor said. She had been weak for months, but she made me leave the room whenever she spoke to the physician. I found a small box after her funeral. It contained the pendant you showed me, a key, and a note telling me never to let anyone take my hands.”
Sofia held them out.
Under the lamplight, the silver letters were fading. The lines looked almost like delicate scars crossing her palms and curling between her fingers.
“May I?” Adrian asked.
She hesitated, then offered one hand.
He did not touch it immediately. “These marks are a form of light-script. The Aurellians were keepers of the royal record, but their work was more than ink. They could preserve a document in a way that only revealed itself under a certain kind of crystal light. The script could not be altered without leaving a trace.”
“Like a watermark?”
“More like a witness.”
Sofia withdrew her hand. “And now I am the witness?”
“I don't know yet.”
“You seem to know a great deal for a man who has spent six years looking for answers.”
“I know what survived in a locked room. I don't know what it means.”
A knock sounded at the door.
Captain Mara entered with a sealed report. “The archive's outer door is intact, but the inner cabinet has been opened. Nothing appears to be missing. The guards found a candle burning beside the west wall.”
“Was anyone seen entering?” Adrian asked.
“No. The corridor guard claims he heard a voice speaking inside the archive. He says it sounded like a woman.”
Sofia's fingers tightened around the edge of the chair.
“What did she say?”
Mara looked at the report. “He remembers only one sentence: 'The last hand has returned.'”
Adrian's gaze moved to Sofia's hands.
She shook her head. “I have never been in that archive.”
“I believe you,” he said.
“You say that very quickly.”
“Because if you had opened the cabinet, you would have had no reason to trigger the alarm and remain in the ballroom.”
“Unless I wanted everyone to know I was here.”
“Then you would be a very poor conspirator.”
Despite herself, Sofia almost smiled.
Adrian turned to Mara. “No one enters the archive alone. Double the guards, but don't seal the lower corridor. I want the staff to continue their duties. Panic will tell the chancellor we found something.”
Mara nodded and left.
Sofia studied the prince. “You speak as though the chancellor is your enemy.”
“I speak as though Lord Voss has controlled the palace records since my father's illness. He was appointed deputy chancellor the week my sister died. He became chancellor after the Aurellian sentence. He has been the keeper of every secret I have tried to uncover.”
“And you have not removed him?”
“Because every time I move against him, someone destroys a record, a witness changes their account, or a member of the council warns him before I can act. If I accuse him without proof, he will turn the court against me.”
“Then we both know what it is to be trapped by someone else's story.”
Adrian looked at her more carefully. “Yes.”
Before the second knock came, Sofia moved to the window and watched the winter garden below. A pair of footmen hurried across the path carrying a covered tray. They glanced toward the antechamber, then quickened their steps. Even the servants seemed to know that the palace had entered a dangerous hour.
“My mother used to say that people become most polite when they are most frightened,” Sofia said. “They lower their voices, call you dear, and explain why you should do what they want.”
Adrian studied her. “Did she say that about the court?”
“She said it about anyone who wanted something from us.”
“And did you believe her?”
“I thought she was being dramatic.” Sofia looked down at the marks on her hands. “After she died, I thought she had been paranoid. I spent years trying to be ordinary enough that no one would ever have a reason to look at me twice.”
“Did it work?”
“Until tonight.”
He accepted the answer without trying to soften it. That mattered more than sympathy would have. Sofia had no desire to be treated like a fragile relic simply because her family had been wronged. She wanted to know what had happened, and she wanted the right to decide what to do with the truth.
Adrian moved the brass key farther from the edge of the table. “If Voss comes in, let me speak first. He will try to make you defend your existence. You do not owe him that.”
“I've been defending myself since I was old enough to understand what people meant when they called my mother a liar.”
“Then tonight you can let the evidence speak before you do.”
Sofia was about to answer when the sharp knock struck the door.
The door opened before Mara could return. Lord Chancellor Voss stepped inside, his silver hair perfectly arranged, his black ceremonial sash lying smooth across his chest.
“Your Highness, the guests are becoming alarmed. The court deserves to know why the ballroom has been locked.”
“The alarm in the west archive has been triggered,” Adrian said.
Voss's gaze flicked to Sofia. “Then I suggest you secure the intruder.”
“I have not identified an intruder.”
“You have an Aurellian in a palace where no Aurellian has been permitted for twenty-seven years. What more do you need?”
Sofia felt heat rise in her face, but she did not look away.
Voss approached her with a false gentleness. “My dear, if you have been told that this name belongs to you, someone has deceived you. The Aurellians were dangerous people. They manipulated the royal family and nearly destroyed the succession.”
“Then why are you afraid of my hands?” Sofia asked.
For one instant, the chancellor's mask slipped.
Adrian stepped between them.
“Leave us, Lord Voss.”
“The council—”
“Can wait.”
Voss bowed. “As you wish, Your Highness.”
At the door, he paused and looked back at Sofia.
“Some names are buried for the good of the living,” he said. “Dig them up, and you may discover why they were buried.”
When he had gone, Sofia released a breath she had not realized she was holding.
“He wants me frightened,” she said.
“He wants you isolated,” Adrian replied. “Fear is only the first step.”
Sofia looked toward the window. Beyond the glass, the winter garden lay silent beneath its frost.
“My mother told me to ask what a crown was hiding,” she said. “I think I have found the question.”
Adrian opened a drawer in the writing desk and removed a small brass key.
“Then we need to find the answer before Voss does.”
May you like
He placed the key on the table.
It was an exact match for the key Sofia had kept hidden in the lining of her glove for eleven years.
