The carriage wheels crunched through a thin layer of ice that laced the cobbled streets of the capital. Snow fell in silent flakes, softening the edges of the grand city, turning its spires and alleys into delicate shapes blurred by white. From inside the carriage, Lady Seraphine Valemont kept her gloved hands folded in her lap, though her fingers itched with nerves.

She had not seen the royal palace in over twelve years.

Back then, she was a child trailing behind her father’s long cloak, unaware of how quickly fortunes could rot. Now, at twenty-one, she returned not as nobility, but as something far less secure—an outsider invited for reasons she didn’t yet understand.

The letter had come in the night, sealed with the dying Queen’s own crest. A call to court. A summons. A risk.

Seraphine adjusted her cloak tighter. “Fools rush toward fire,” her father used to say, “but only the clever make it back with something that burns brighter.”

She would be clever. She had no choice.

The carriage came to a halt, and the door opened to the courtyard of Elowen Palace. Cold air slapped her face. She stepped down carefully, boots meeting frozen stone, and immediately, her gaze was drawn upward.

The palace loomed as if carved from bone—elegant, haunting. Shadows passed behind high, frosted windows. Soldiers in silver uniforms lined the entrance, unsmiling.

A steward approached. “Lady Seraphine Valemont?” he asked, as if her name tasted strange.

“Yes.”

“You’re to be taken to the Queen’s chambers at once. Her Majesty is expecting you.”

No pleasantries. No time.

Seraphine followed, her boots clicking faintly behind the steward’s. The palace walls felt colder than the snow outside. Portraits of long-dead monarchs stared down at her as if sensing her unworthiness.

Then, just before they reached the Queen’s wing, they passed him.

A tall figure clad in a heavy navy coat stood at the end of the corridor, half-turned toward a flickering torch. His dark hair was still wet from snow, and a thin scar cut across his right cheek like a whisper of violence. He didn’t speak, but his presence was thunderous.

Their eyes met.

General Caelum D’Arden.

She recognized him from paintings, from rumors passed in drawing rooms—war hero, tactician, the King’s blade. But no one mentioned his silence, the stillness of him. The weight of his gaze.

He looked at her as if he already knew something about her that she didn’t.

Then, without a word, he turned and disappeared into another corridor.

The steward, unfazed, resumed walking. “Best not to look him in the eyes, my lady. The General’s known to make ghosts of men braver than he is.”

Seraphine didn’t answer. But in her chest, her heart had picked up something between fear and fascination.

---

The Queen’s chamber was lit by the sickly warmth of candlelight. Heavy curtains cloaked the windows, and the scent of lavender was thick, meant to mask decay. Queen Isolde lay propped on silk pillows, her skin nearly translucent. Her once-famous beauty was now a memory beneath brittle bones.

But her voice, when she spoke, was steel.

“You’ve grown into your mother’s mouth,” she said, before Seraphine could curtsey. “Sharp and impossible to silence.”

Seraphine blinked. “Your Majesty remembers me?”

“I remember everything,” the Queen rasped, “especially the useful. Sit.”

She obeyed.

“I’m dying,” the Queen said plainly. “And with me, the line of women who’ve kept this kingdom from tearing itself apart. My son is a fool. The nobles are restless. The wolves are howling at the borders. So I need someone no one sees coming.”

“You… need me?”

“I need a shadow. One smart enough to listen, and bold enough to act. You have your father’s mind, and your mother’s blood. That makes you dangerous. That makes you perfect.”

Seraphine stared. The Queen’s words rang like prophecy, but they held something cruel behind them.

“What would you have me do?”

The Queen’s lips twitched, nearly a smile. “Watch. Listen. Speak only when it will change something. And stay away from Caelum D’Arden.”

“Why?”

“Because he already knows too many secrets. And you… you look like someone he once failed to protect.”

---

That night, Seraphine was given a chamber near the East Wing, overlooking the frost-covered gardens. She couldn’t sleep. She walked to the window and watched the snow fall until her eyes burned.

Somewhere, in the vast halls of the palace, a man with a scarred face and silent steps haunted the corridors.

And somewhere deeper still, a plan was already unfolding.

The winter had begun.

---

The snow muffled everything.

Caelum stood at the farthest edge of the palace’s south tower, where the wind howled too loud for courtiers to eavesdrop and the guards had the good sense to stay away. His boots were soaked, his coat heavy with melting frost, but he remained unmoved.

In his gloved hand was a letter.

Unmarked. Sealed with red wax. No crest.

He had found it slid beneath his door that morning—no servant claimed to have seen it delivered. No one should have known he had returned. Not yet.

Caelum turned it over again, staring at the handwriting.

Neat. Familiar.

Too familiar.

He ripped the seal.

> To General D’Arden

If this reaches you, it means the Queen no longer trusts her own court.

I write with trembling hands and an oath half-broken. The child lives.

She was hidden. Protected. But the truth won’t stay buried, and now they are looking for her.

You will know her by her eyes. And by the way she never bows.

Do not let them use her.

I should never have let her go.

—E.

His breath stopped.

There was only one person who would sign with that single letter. Only one man who knew the truth. But that man was—

“Dead,” Caelum muttered aloud, the word bitter and unreal in the cold. “You died. I saw your body.”

Yet the letter was in his hand.

He didn’t have time to process what it meant before the clanging of bells rang out across the courtyard.

Not the morning bell. Not the summons to court.

The Queen’s bell.

Urgent. Measured.

She was calling him.

Again.

---

Queen Isolde was seated this time, a fur blanket draped across her lap, her fingers shaking as she poured herself tea. She didn’t look up when he entered.

“I wondered how long it would take them to tell you,” she said softly. “Close the door.”

Caelum obeyed.

She looked at him then. “You received a letter.”

His spine stiffened. “I did.”

“From your friend.”

“You told me he was dead.”

The Queen smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “He is. That doesn’t mean he didn’t plan ahead. Eron was a planner.”

Eron.

Caelum sat without being asked, eyes sharp. “What did you do with her?”

“With who?”

“The child. The one he mentions.”

Isolde laughed—hoarse, cold. “I didn’t raise her in the palace, if that’s what you’re imagining. Do you think I would’ve survived if they knew she had royal blood? No. I let her grow wild. Outside the walls. Where no one would look.”

“Why call her back now?”

“Because I’m dying, Caelum,” the Queen whispered, her fingers tightening on the teacup, “and my son is not ready. The vultures will descend. She is the only one with enough sense to survive their hunger.”

Caelum stared at her, thoughts unraveling in directions he didn’t want to go.

“She doesn’t know,” he said. “Does she?”

“No. And she mustn’t. Not until the moment is right.”

“And when is that?”

“When she’s strong enough to walk away if she must.”

He looked down. The image of the girl in the hallway—no, the woman—flashed in his mind. Firelight in her hair. Defiance in her spine. Eyes that did not bow.

Seraphine.

His voice was rough when he asked, “Why did you choose me for this?”

The Queen’s eyes softened.

“Because you protect the things you’re ordered to destroy. And because she will not survive this place unless someone remembers she’s still human.”

---

That night, Caelum stood outside Seraphine’s chamber door, his hand raised to knock.

He hesitated.

Inside, he could hear the soft rustle of paper, maybe a fire crackling. She was awake. Perhaps writing. Perhaps plotting.

She was more like Eron than she would ever know.

And yet—he lowered his hand.

He didn’t knock.

Instead, he whispered into the silence:

“Forgive me, Seraphine. For what I did to your father. For what I must do to you.”

And then he disappeared into the shadowed corridor, leaving no trace he had ever been there.

There was a chill behind her door.

Seraphine turned too quickly, convinced someone had been there. But when she opened it, only the quiet hallway waited—a stretch of candlelit stone and frost-laced windows. No guards. No servants. Nothing but air that somehow felt disturbed.

She closed it slowly.

Something about this place was beginning to make her bones itch. It wasn’t just the silence or the old, creaking walls. It was the way people looked at her—as if she carried a name she hadn’t been told yet.

As if they were waiting for her to become someone she wasn’t sure she wanted to be.

She went back to her desk. A letter half-written sat in front of her, the quill still wet. She had meant to write to Aunt Imelda, the only family left who still dared speak to her. But what could she say?

> I’ve returned to the palace that exiled us. The Queen is dying.

She says I’m useful. That I’m meant to watch. But what am I really here for?

No. Even that was too much to trust to ink.

Instead, she walked to the fire and tossed the page into the flames.

As the paper curled and blackened, she caught her reflection in the window glass. For a moment, it wasn’t her face staring back.

It was a girl younger than she remembered. Darker hair. A slash of dirt across her cheek. Bare feet on snow.

And then it was gone.

---

The next morning, Seraphine was summoned to the Conservatory Hall for a private audience with the Crown Prince.

She had never met him, though his name—Crown Prince Lucien Alaric of Elowen—had been sewn into her childhood like a warning. Too pretty. Too reckless. More concerned with poetry than politics.

When she arrived, he was playing the piano.

And not well.

“Lady Valemont,” he said without rising. “Do you dance?”

She blinked. “Not since I was eight.”

He looked up at her, hair golden and eyes feverish. “Excellent. I don’t like perfect dancers. They take themselves too seriously.”

“Is this an interrogation or an audition?”

Lucien smiled—charming, careless. “Neither. The court tells me you’re clever. My mother thinks you’re dangerous. I simply wanted to see if you’re beautiful in person.”

She raised an eyebrow. “And am I?”

He stood then, crossing the room with too much ease for a man with so much power and so little responsibility. He stopped an arm’s length away.

“You’re terrifyingly beautiful,” he said softly. “And I like being scared.”

Seraphine held her ground. “Then you’ll enjoy what happens next.”

Before he could ask, the doors opened again—sharp and sudden.

General Caelum D’Arden stepped in, his expression unreadable, his coat dusted with the morning’s snow.

Lucien sighed dramatically. “And now the silence has arrived.”

Caelum didn’t spare him a glance. “The Queen has summoned Lady Valemont again.”

Lucien looked at Seraphine. “Already? I haven’t even frightened her properly.”

“She doesn’t frighten easily,” Caelum said coolly. “That’s why she’s here.”

Their eyes met then—Seraphine and Caelum—and the air between them went still.

Not warm.

Not cold.

Something in between. Something like recognition.

He didn’t offer his arm. She didn’t expect it.

They walked side by side through the long hallway, saying nothing.

Until she asked, without looking at him, “Who do I remind you of?”

He didn’t answer right away. His jaw tensed.

“A man who lied to protect what he loved,” he said finally. “And paid for it with his life.”

Seraphine’s step faltered.

He kept walking.

And behind them, the palace exhaled—walls shifting, secrets stirring, and something buried beginning to rise.

---