The letter arrived wrapped in silk the color of old blood.
There was no seal.
No crest.
No signature.
Just her name, not as a queen.
But as the girl she used to be.
Selene Arlont.
The sight of it turned her stomach cold.
No one had called her that in years.
Not in this palace.
Not since she buried that identity under velvet, steel, and fire.
She closed the door of her private study, locking it with trembling fingers.
Her eyes never left the letter.
It sat on her desk like a ghost she didn't know how to exorcise.
She should've ignored it.
Should've thrown it in the fire before curiosity and fear had a chance to bloom.
But Selene had learned that ignoring whispers only made them louder.
So she broke the seal.
Slowly.
Carefully.
And read.
"Dearest Selene,
If you are reading this, then the queen has not devoured the girl completely."
"You were never meant to sit beside Cassian. You were meant to bury him."
There was no name at the bottom.
Only a single mark, small, burned into the parchment corner.
A red crown.
Split clean down the center.
Selene stared at it for a long time.
Then she stood.
Not fast.
Not in fear.
With cold precision.
She stepped onto the balcony and let the wind slap the nausea from her throat.
The letter didn't frighten her.
The truth did.
Because that mark, the broken crown, belonged to a ghost she thought she'd outrun.
The Ash Circle.
The group that raised her.
Trained her.
Sent her into Veredon with a knife between her ribs and a mission in her blood.
She had betrayed them the day she decided not to kill Cassian.
The day she chose power over revenge.
But the Circle hadn't forgotten.
And now they wanted to remind her who she used to be.
Later that night, Selene summoned two people she trusted:
Captain Elric, her loyal blade.
And Ingrid, her high scribe and the only person alive who knew the name Ceyra Arlont.
She didn't offer tea.
Didn't waste words.
She dropped the letter on the war table between them like a body.
Ingrid was the first to speak.
"I thought they were dismantled."
"They were," Selene said.
"Or you thought they were," Elric corrected.
Selene's fingers curled against the table.
"They're testing me. Watching. And now they want me to return."
Ingrid frowned. "Or they're warning you."
Selene raised her eyes.
"I don't need warnings. I need names."
They gave her none.
Because the Circle didn't leave fingerprints.
Only blood.
That night, Selene walked the palace alone.
She moved like a shadow.
No crown.
No cloak.
Just a dagger beneath her gown and a burning in her chest that felt like betrayal.
She didn't sleep.
She watched.
Studied the guards.
The servants.
The advisors who bowed too slowly.
The handmaidens who flinched when her eyes lingered too long.
The Circle wouldn't send strangers.
They'd send someone already inside.
Someone who knew how to smile in silence and bleed in secret.
And just before dawn, her suspicion became certainty.
She found the second message.
Tucked beneath her breakfast tray.
Hidden under a folded napkin.
One line.
"There are two others. You walk among them every day."
Selene read it twice.
Then burned it with the candle flame on the table.
She didn't eat.
Didn't speak to Cassian when he entered the study with news of troop movement on the border.
She simply nodded.
Pretended.
And locked the scream inside her chest with iron.
She couldn't afford panic.
Couldn't afford weakness.
Not when someone was watching her bleed from the inside.
By nightfall, she had a plan.
It wasn't clean.
It wasn't safe.
But Selene knew that power was never earned by being careful.
She summoned Evelyn, her handmaiden, the one who'd brushed her hair the night she wore the crown, the one who had seen her cry before she swore she'd never cry again.
Evelyn entered with a smile.
And Selene watched her like she was looking at a knife.
"You've been with me for years," Selene said softly.
Evelyn nodded, surprised.
"Since your wedding, my queen."
"You've always been loyal?"
"Of course."
Selene poured two glasses of wine.
Handed one to the girl.
"Then prove it."
Evelyn took it with a smile.
Drank.
And didn't flinch.
But Selene did.
Because now she was sure.
Not because Evelyn lied.
But because her lies were too perfect.
Too practiced.
Too familiar.
She didn't kill her that night.
She wanted to.
She ached to.
But Selene knew how the Circle worked.
Kill one, and two more slither in the shadows.
She needed proof.
A trail.
A trap.
So she let Evelyn leave.
And ordered Elric to follow her in silence.
At sunrise, Ingrid entered with a scroll.
It was unsigned.
But the seal was the same.
The broken crown.
It read:
"The king was never your enemy."
"The throne was never your goal."
"You are the fire. But even fire obeys the wind."
Selene tore it in half.
Then in half again.
Because they were wrong.
She had once obeyed.
She had once believed in revenge.
Now?
She believed in power.
And she would not give it back to the ghosts who forged her.
That night, she stood at the edge of the war chamber's balcony.
The wind howled.
The stars hid behind smoke.
And she whispered to the darkness:
"I buried that girl."
"But if you want her back…"
"I'll show you what she became."