Prince Kael found me in the royal greenhouse, where the roses had long since gone feral.
Wild thorns coiled up marble columns like serpents. Petals the color of bruises swayed in the heat-glazed air. The place was mostly forgotten, much like me before the banquet. It seemed we both thrived in the places others feared to touch.
He didn't announce himself. He never did.
"I hear you met with Lady Elira," he said.
I didn't turn around. "I did."
Kael's boots crunched over gravel as he approached. "Alone. No guards. No witnesses."
I snipped a dying bloom from its stem. "Did you expect me to poison her with garden shears?"
"Don't be glib."
"Don't be suspicious," I replied, facing him. "She came to me. Not the other way around."
He frowned, crossing his arms. "Why?"
"Because she's cleverer than you think," I said. "And because the world you've built around her—this sweet, innocent lie—is beginning to rot."
Kael said nothing. His jaw worked, silent but grinding.
I stepped closer, holding the clipped rose between us.
"You expect me to be the villain," I said softly. "The crown needs it. The court needs it. Even Elira needs it. Someone to blame. Someone to fall."
I tilted my head. "But what if the real enemy doesn't wear a dress?"
For a moment, he didn't answer.
Then, low and dangerously: "What are you playing at?"
I placed the rose into his hand.
"I'm not playing," I said. "Not anymore."
Kael stared at the bloom—violet petals, black thorns. The bloodline symbol of House Vale.
Then he looked up. "You've changed."
"You keep saying that," I replied. "Maybe it's time you ask why."
---
By nightfall, Camden's message arrived.
It was wrapped in charred parchment and sealed with melted wax—his signature style. I opened it under candlelight, the script scrawled in hurried lines:
> The Vale curse is real. But it didn't start with your house.
It was placed upon the royal bloodline three centuries ago—then redirected. Someone used your ancestors as vessels. A shield to hide the rot in the throne itself.
You are not the monster. You are the vault.
I need more time. But beware the High Cardinal. He is not who he claims to be.
I reread it twice. Three times.
Then I whispered the only word that mattered now.
"Leverage."
---
The next morning, I summoned Aelith's boy—Scratch—and handed him a sealed envelope, bound with red thread.
"Deliver this directly to the High Cardinal's steward. No detours. No traces."
Scratch tilted his head. "And what if he reads it?"
"He won't understand it," I said. "But he'll know I know something."
His grin was crooked. "I like you, Lady Vale. You're scary."
"Good," I said. "Now go."
---
By evening, I was back in my chambers, studying the map of court alliances I'd pinned behind the false mirror. Strings crossed like scars: names, factions, debts, rumors. Most nobles underestimated how much power could be held in silence, in things not said.
But now?
Now I had truth. Dangerous, bleeding truth.
And somewhere behind the velvet smiles and cathedral hymns, the true villain was stirring.
Not me.
Not Kael.
Not even Elira.
The crown itself.
It was never about redemption.
It was about revolution.
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