Chapter 42

Lena’s POV

By the time we reached the palace gates, it was already past midnight. The ride back had been long and quiet. No one spoke unless it was necessary.

We had barely stepped into the main hall when Jayden approached.

He looked like he’d been waiting.

“Your Highness,” he said, giving a short bow before holding something out to me.

An envelope.

It was no longer clean ivory. Dirt streaked the edges, and one corner was bent, but it was intact.

“This is what flew out of the window,” he reported. “It was covered in soil, but the contents seem undamaged.”

I took it from him, brushing some of the dried dirt away with my thumb. It felt heavier than it should have.

“Did you see what’s inside?” I asked.

“Only the first few pages.” He hesitated. His jaw tightened slightly—subtle, but I noticed. “I believe it would be best if you reviewed the rest with Commander Alric.”

I frowned. “Why?”

Jayden paused. For a moment I thought he wouldn’t answer. “It’s about the lady.”

My gaze hardened.

I looked back down at the envelope. My grip tightened before I forced myself to loosen it. My chest felt strangely tight—not fear, not quite — but the uncomfortable weight of anticipation. Whatever was inside this could change things.

“Thank you, Jayden,” I said quietly.

He stepped aside, and I didn’t waste another second.

The prison ward was colder than the rest of the palace. The air always carried a faint metallic scent, stone walls swallowing sound. My boots echoed sharply against the corridor floor as I made my way toward Commander Alric’s study.

The door was slightly ajar.

I pushed it open.

Empty.

I stood there for a moment, the envelope still clutched in my hand.

A sigh escaped me before I could stop it.

Maybe this could wait.

Everyone had been on edge for days. Exhaustion was starting to show in the smallest cracks. Alric was likely resting now.

I glanced down at the envelope again.

Tomorrow, I will open it tomorrow.

I walked back to Commander Alric’s desk and set the envelope down in the center, aligning it with the edge out of habit.

I turned toward the door, already telling myself I needed rest too,

But halfway across the room, I stopped.

The study was too quiet. The faint scratch of wind against the narrow window filled the silence, and my gaze drifted back to the desk despite myself.

If Marcus had kept that envelope with him, it wasn’t incidental. And if Jayden believed it concerned Miu, then Marcus had a reason for holding onto it.

My jaw tightened. I walked back to the desk before I could talk myself out of it.

For a moment I simply stood there, staring down at the envelope as though it might react to me. I told myself this was important.

If it involved Miu, I needed to know. Delaying it wouldn’t change what was inside.

I exhaled once, reached forward, and picked it up.

The seal had already been loosened. I slid the contents free and found myself holding a stack of photographs.

The first image showed a group of women standing close together, dressed in silk and lace cut far too deliberately to be mistaken for fashion alone. Jewelry glinted at their throats and wrists.

“The Ducaines’ escorts,” I muttered quietly.

I turned to the next photograph. A different setting—different drapery, different lighting—but the same type of gathering. The women were arranged in neat rows, some seated, some standing. It felt staged.

The third photograph confirmed it.

Only this time, my eyes caught the date stamped at the bottom.

One year ago.

I frowned and began to look more carefully, scanning the faces instead of the clothing. I went from left to right, studying each woman as I would during a briefing—taking in posture, expression, familiarity.

Then I saw her.

“Miu,” I said under my breath.

She stood near the end of the second row, not drawing attention to herself. Her hair was longer there, falling over one shoulder. Her expression was neutral, almost cautious.

I flipped to the next photograph.

She was there again.

Different event. Different arrangement. Same presence.

A pattern began to form as I moved through the stack. There were several photographs for each year, all structured similarly—group compositions, formal settings, consistent documentation.

It was almost administrative in its repetition. Attendance records disguised as social gatherings.

And every year, Miu appeared in them.

A cold weight settled in my stomach as I continued turning the photographs. With each one, something shifted. The guarded look I had grown used to seeing in her eyes began to loosen.

The rigid set of her shoulders eased. The sharp control in her expression softened into something less practiced, less concealed.

The further I went, the less composed she appeared—until the careful mask I knew so well had thinned into traces of someone younger, less hardened, and far more exposed than I had ever seen her.

Then I reached the last four photographs.

I slowed.

The image I turned to next made my breath catch before I could stop it.

Miu stood in the back row—but she was younger. Noticeably younger. Her frame was thinner, her face sharper with youth. Her hair was cut short, not styled but trimmed in a practical way that framed her face differently.

Almost like a boy.

My fingers tightened around the edge of the photograph.

The angle of her jaw. The line of her brows. The way she stood with her shoulders squared and chin slightly raised.

It was unsettlingly familiar.

My mind supplied the comparison before I wanted it to.

Matthew.

The room tilted.

For a moment, I genuinely thought I was going to fall. I reached out blindly and caught the edge of the desk, my fingers digging into the wood as if it were the only solid thing left in the world.

“It can’t be…”

The photograph trembled in my hand.

Miu—no, not the Miu I knew—Her face was swollen, eyes red and raw as if she had been crying for hours before the picture was taken. She wore a dress, lace at the collar, fabric hanging stiffly from her thin frame.

But her features—

They were unmistakable.

The shape of her eyes. The sharp line of her nose. The slight downturn at the corner of her lips when she tried to hold herself together.

“No…”

My vision blurred. I didn’t realize I was crying until a tear struck the photograph and smeared the image beneath it.

“How…? But…”

My chest tightened violently, as if something inside had seized. I tried to draw in a breath, but my lungs wouldn’t cooperate. Air refused to come properly, breaking into shallow, useless gasps.

Memories I tried so hard to lock away—buried so deeply I consistently tried to convince myself to forget—forced their way to the surface.

—

Ten years ago…

“Father.”

I was already on my feet before he had fully entered the door. The moment I saw him step in, dust clinging to his boots and shoulders, something in my chest finally loosened for the first time in weeks.

The war was over.

At least, that was what the news had said.

He had sent us away before the rebellion even began. Before guns were drawn. Before allies were declared. He had insisted it was temporary, that it was only until things settled. But I knew the truth even then.

He feared King Arthur would retaliate. Not on the battlefield—but at against wives. Against daughters.

Against anyone left defenseless.

I ran to him before decorum could stop me and threw my arms around him.

He stiffened in surprise, then wrapped his arms around me just as tightly. He smelled of steel and smoke and the faint bitterness of dried sweat. Real. Alive.

“Thank heavens you’re alright,” I muttered against his chest before pulling back to look at him.

He looked thinner. There were new lines around his eyes. His beard had grown uneven, as if he’d stopped caring to trim it properly.

“I’m here,” he said, resting his hands briefly on my shoulders as if to confirm I was real too.

His gaze shifted past me almost immediately. “How’s your mother?”

I swallowed. “She’s still not well. The physicians say it’s exhaustion… nerves.” I hesitated. “But I’m sure she’ll be better once she sees you.”

That wasn’t entirely a lie. Mother had barely left her bed for days. Worry had hollowed her out.

Every rumor from the front had struck her like a physical blow. There were nights I found her awake, staring at nothing, lips moving in silent prayer.

“I hope so,” Father said quietly.

His voice carried something heavier than fatigue. Relief, yes—but also something guarded. Something unspoken.

But then the thought I had been trying to suppress for weeks forced its way forward.

“Father…”

He only hummed in response, still removing his gloves.

I hesitated. The question lodged in my throat. I had rehearsed it so many times while he was away, and now that he stood in front of me, alive and within reach, I found myself afraid of the answer.

But I didn’t need to say it.

He knew.

His movements slowed. I saw his jaw tighten before he looked away from me entirely. Without another word, he reached for the small leather bag slung over his shoulder and opened it carefully, as if whatever lay inside required caution.

My heart began to pound.

He searched through the contents in silence. Then he pulled something free.

At first, I didn’t recognize it.

The silver was dulled beneath blackened streaks. The handle was scorched, the leather grip cracked and brittle from heat. Ash still clung to the creases.

But I knew it.

I knew it instantly.

“I’m sorry, my dear,” Father said quietly. “I didn’t see him fighting them myself. This was the only thing salvageable from his body.”

Body?

The word struck harder than any blade.

My knees nearly gave out beneath me. I stared at the silver whip in his hand—the one Matthew never went without when battle called for it. The one he’d laughed about the first time he tested its balance.

“W-what do you mean?” My voice didn’t sound like mine. “Why…”

My fingers had gone numb.

“His body was burned in a fire,” Father continued, each word measured, controlled. “It was unrecognizable. Only fragments of his royal attire remained. And this.”

The whip felt heavier than it ever had when he placed it into my shaking hands.

I stared at it.

The engraving along the base was still there, faint beneath soot and damage. I traced it with my thumb, the familiar pattern I had personally commissioned.

“T-tell me this is not true, Father.”

I looked up at him through blurred vision, desperation clawing its way into my voice. I must have looked like a child in that moment, clinging to denial as if it could undo what he had just said.

He didn’t answer immediately. His eyes softened in a way that made my stomach drop.

“I’m sorry, my dear…” he said at last, and the resignation in his voice was worse than any scream. He shook his head slowly.

Something inside me broke.

“N-No!” The word tore out of me as my legs gave way.

I collapsed onto the floor, the impact barely registering before a sound ripped from my chest—a raw, broken wail I didn’t recognize as my own.

It felt as if something had reached inside me and hollowed me out in one brutal motion.

“Ahhh!” I screamed again, folding in on myself.

Father caught me before I could hit the ground fully. His arms wrapped around me, trying to hold me upright, but I was shaking too violently.

I clutched the whip against my chest, pressing it against my chest as though it were the only piece of him I had left.

It hurt.

Breathing hurts. Thinking hurts.

I screamed again, and again, pouring everything out of me. Grief, disbelief, fury. I screamed as if the sound alone might shatter this moment and force me to wake up in my bed, sunlight streaming through the curtains, Matthew alive somewhere beyond the door.

But the more I cried, the more real it became.

Nothing changed.

The room did not dissolve. The whip did not disappear. My father’s arms remained solid around me.

And Matthew is not coming back.

I dimly felt another pair of hands grasp my shoulders. I looked up through tears and saw my mother standing there, her face pale with shock, her eyes wide and terrified.

I must have woken her. But even that thought barely registered.

All I could think was—how do I go on?

How do I wake up tomorrow?

How do I take another step in this world?

The man I had prayed for every night. The one I dreamed of standing side by side. The one I imagined waking beside one day, sharing a life—

Gone.

“Marry me, Lena. We’ll survive this war. Together. And when this ends… I will make you my Queen.”

His voice echoed so clearly in my mind that it almost felt real. I could hear the certainty in it. The warmth. The promise.

Together.

My fingers tightened around the whip as my strength slowly drained from my body. The world around me dulled, sounds muffling beneath the roar in my ears.

But I am now alone.