The doors slammed shut behind him.Kazimir de Velerus was gone.
Summoned by the King himself, likely to report on another skirmish or the bodies he'd left cooling somewhere on the border. She stood frozen, air still thick with his scent—leather, blood, steel, and something older. Something almost ancient. Her hands still clutched the folds of her skirt, her back pressed to the stone wall where she had hidden, breathless.
Her heartbeat hadn't slowed.Not even after he disappeared into the shadows of the corridor.
But something else had stayed behind.The wig.It sat on the vanity like a dead thing. Raven-black strands tangled over the polished wood, as if it had been discarded intentionally. As if he had placed it there, not out of forgetfulness, but warning.
She didn't wait to find out.
Her body moved before her thoughts caught up, half-desperation, half-instinct. She slipped from behind the curtain, legs trembling beneath her as she crossed the room. Her fingers closed over the wig like it was lifeline, like it could still protect her from what she had just almost become—exposed. Unmasked. Recognized.
She had to go.
Now.
Without a sound, she tugged the wig over her moon-pale hair, the strands damp from sweat, clinging like a second skin. She twisted it into place, fixing the pins in blind haste, breathing shallowly as she rushed to the door. Her veil trembled in her hands. One tug. Two knots. It slipped over her face like a lie returning to its home.
She disguised herself as Selena Thorne.The soft-spoken, voiceless daughter of Duke Kaizan.
A girl who bowed. Who curtsied. Who didn't burn.Not her.Not the Veyron. Asheryn Aver Veyron. That's what they called her in her Avermont .The fallen princess of Avermont
She slipped out of Kazimir's room, heart a storm in her ribs, and into the endless corridors of Valeria.
The night air inside the palace was colder than she remembered.
Torches flickered low in their brackets. The high arched windows let in only silver light now, the moon casting everything in bone and shadow. Her slippers whispered against the black marble, leaving no trace of her passing. Her breath echoed behind the veil, hot and frantic.
She didn't know which direction she was heading.
She only knew she had to disappear.
But her feet turned not toward the guest halls or the outer wing, not toward safety or escape—but deeper. Left, then right, then down another corridor, drawn by something she couldn't name. Maybe curiosity. Maybe grief.
Maybe fate.
And then she saw it.
A different corridor.
Older. Wider. Forgotten.
The carpet here was faded, its red dulled to rust. The walls were darker stone. The torches here had burned lower. The air felt... heavier. Thicker. And the walls—
Portraits.
She slowed.
They lined the entire hallway, floor to ceiling. Oil-painted faces stared out at her in rows, trapped behind centuries of varnish and silence. They watched. Witnessed. Judged.
She stepped toward the first.
The plaque read:
> King Aldric de Velerus, Twelfth Sovereign of Valeria.
But it wasn't the Aldric she knew.
Not the weathered monarch with mournful eyes who now sat on Valeria's crumbling throne.
This king was young.
Barely thirty. Golden. Radiant. The beginnings of a kingdom still in his posture. He smiled softly, his hand resting on the shoulder of a woman standing beside him.
Her breath caught.
The woman was a vision of silver and fire.
Empress Ilyana de Velerus.
And in her arms—
A child.
Wide silver eyes. Pale skin. A solemn mouth.
Kazimir.
She blinked once, slowly.
It felt like looking into another world. Another time.
This was before the curse. Before the battlefield. Before the dragon.
Kazimir's head leaned against his mother's shoulder, his small hands gripping the red velvet of her sleeve. There was a gentleness to the way she held him, the way her body curved around his—fierce, protective.
Her knees weakened.
She moved to the next portrait.
Kazimir again. Older now—perhaps eight. Dressed in ceremonial black and crimson. He stood beside Ilyana, his hand in hers. His silver eyes seemed older than they should be. But still, not empty. Not yet.
The next frame punched the breath from her lungs.
The Empress was gone.
The plaque now read:
> King Aldric de Velerus and the Royal Household.
There were three new women now. The remaining queens. Their children stood flanking them, eyes bright with privilege, their clothes rich with embroidered power.
And in the center—
A boy.
Dressed in scarlet and gold, the crown already poised in paint above his brow.
Crown Prince Rhael de Velerus.
She had seen him in court from a distance. Heard of his charm. His fire. His cunning.
But nowhere in that painting—
Nowhere in the gallery—
Was Kazimir.
He had been erased.
Removed.
As if he were a stain on the legacy of Valeria.
Her fingers trembled where they curled around the edge of her veil. Her breathing hitched. This hallway… it wasn't for memory.
It was for rewriting history.
She took a step back. Then another.
The weight of those silenced frames pressed in on her from all sides.
She turned.
And slammed into something.
No—someone.
A hard chest. Warm hands catching her by the shoulders before she stumbled.
The smell of spiced leather. Myrrh. Ashwood.
A voice, velvet-dark and dripping amusement:
"Well now. I wasn't aware the Thorned Rose had a taste for royal secrets."
Her blood turned to ice.
She looked up—
And met the golden eyes of Crown Prince Rhael de Velerus.
She froze.
Too close. Too sudden.
He looked down at her with a smile—not cruel, not kind. Something far worse.
Amused.
"I—I'm sorry, Your Highness," she whispered, pulling herself upright. "Forgive me. I didn't know where this corridor led. I was only looking for my father."
His gaze flicked over her veil. Her gown. Her hands.
He stepped closer.
Too smooth. Too easy.
"And which father would that be?" he asked, though his voice was silk. "Ah… of course. Duke Kaizan's silent little rose."
She said nothing.
He smiled wider.
"Selena Thorne."
His voice curled around the name like he was tasting it.
"Lost, were you?" he said, head tilting. "Or lured?"
She shook her head quickly. "I… I didn't know this was a restricted hall."
His hand lifted—just a fraction.
He brushed a strand of her wig from her shoulder.
The motion was harmless.
But her whole body locked up.
"You're shaking," he observed.
Her mouth dried.
"I was startled. The palace… I haven't learned its full map."
"A pity," he murmured. "Not everyone would be so understanding, stumbling upon a royal family's unfinished paintings."
Her stomach twisted.
"But I," he said, stepping back, "have always had a soft spot for girls who wander where they shouldn't."
Her hands tightened in the folds of her dress.
He turned then—graceful, catlike—and nodded at the guards now gathering at the corridor's end.
"Escort Lady Selena to the east wing. Her father is no doubt pacing the marble waiting for her."
The guards bowed.But as they stepped toward her, she dared one glance back—Rhael still stood in the corridor.Still smiling.Still watching.And in those golden phoenix eyes—
Something flickered.Not recognition.Not suspicion.But hunger.Something deep.Something burning.Like he had caught a scent he shouldn't have.
And didn't mind the danger.
The guards said nothing as they escorted her through the silent corridors of the palace. But it wasn't the kind of silence that came from discipline or duty—it was tense, weighed down by questions no one dared voice. Their steps echoed too precisely, too carefully, as if trying not to disturb something that lingered in the air. One of the younger guards glanced at her more than once, uncertainty flickering in his eyes like a flame struggling to stay lit.
Doubt clung to them.
None had seen her enter the abandoned hallway—the one sealed off from nearly every corner of the palace. And more puzzling than that… no one had seen her pass through Kazimir de Velerus's chamber, the only passage that led there. When they'd gone to summon the Butcher Prince for the King's call earlier, but there was not a single soul they saw in way.
And yet, somehow, she had emerged from within.
As they neared the eastern gate, the flicker of torchlight caught on the polished crest of a waiting carriage—black and silver, unmistakable. House Thorne.
And pacing just beside it, his figure sharp as a blade in the moonlight, stood Duke Kaizen Thorne.
The moment his eyes found her, he stilled. His gaze narrowed, cold calculation flickering behind his storm-grey eyes.
"There you are," he said, voice clipped, a touch too controlled. "Selena, where have you been?"
She lowered her head just enough to appear remorseful, her voice soft behind the veil. "I was lost… I went looking for you, Father."
For a moment, silence stretched between them.He had left her in the guest chamber himself. He knew that. So did she.
His expression didn't change—but his jaw tightened. He looked past her to the guards, who exchanged glances but said nothing. It was enough to feed his curiosity, enough to plant a seed of doubt.
Then, without another word, he pulled open the carriage door ."Get in. You'll catch cold."
She obeyed quietly, slipping inside without resistance. But as the door shut and the carriage rumbled into motion, she could feel it in the air.
He didn't believe her.He might've let it slide—for now. But Duke Kaizen Thorne was not a man who forgot.