"You stabbed him with a dessert fork!!."
"I did," Seraphina replied coolly, brushing imaginary lint from her sleeve.
Professor Lenwyn stared at her like she'd just committed treason in lace cuffs.
"Princess this is Etiquette and Court Conduct. Not assassination training."
Seraphina tilted her head.
"He said a lady should never speak before her betters. I merely offered a correction."
"By impaling his cravat?"
"Technically, it was the pastry fork. The dessert fork is for things with layers."
Gasps. Laughter. One student fainted, but that was Damaris, and Damaris fainted twice a week for attention.
Seraphina didn't smile.
She never did.
But her eyes cold, clever, glittering like a knife in candlelight sparked just once.
Lenwyn sighed dramatically and turned to the chalkboard.
"Class dismissed. Before someone loses an eye. Again!"
Students filed out in murmuring clusters.
Seraphina remained at her desk, glancing toward the window.
She didn't speak to anyone.
She didn't need to.
Because even in silence, the room still tilted toward her. Gravity bent around royalty, but it knelt before Seraphina Valmont.
She opened her notebook, but she wasn't writing.
She was sketching.
A spiral.
Small.
Violet.
Endless.
And in the quiet curve of ink, her thoughts coiled like serpents.
She had seen the girl.
She had sent the letter.
But it wasn't kindness.
It was chess.
And Seraphina volmont had never lost a game.
***
"You have to insult the peacock first," Mina whispered, leading Kai up the shadowed stairwell. "That's the only way it opens."
Kai raised a brow. "You want me to curse at a tapestry to get tea?"
"It's not about logic. It's about biscuits. Magical ones."
He was halfway through rolling his eyes when
Something shifted.
Not the stairs.
Not the air.
The thread of the world pulled tight.
He stopped. One foot still raised. A tension climbed his spine.
The music wing.
Empty. Condemned.
Except…
A light flickered beneath the door.
Candlelight? Or magic pretending to be fire?
Mina kept talking. He didn't hear her.
He stepped forward. Quiet. Drawn.
Inside, the air shimmered like memory.
And by the fractured window
She stood.
Hair like starlight drowned in seawater.
Stillness wrapped around her like armor.
Not poised.
Not guarded.
Listening.
She didn't move when he stepped in.
But she turned.
And the world tipped.
Not love at first sight.
Not fate.
Something older.
Recognition without memory.
Ache without cause.
Their eyes locked.
And in that single glance,
every buried thing inside him reached.
Then
she turned.
And ran.
Mina burst in a second too late. "Okay! What just happened? Did she see a ghost or realize she forgot to wear pants?"
Kai didn't move.
His voice came quiet. Certain.
"I've found her."
Mina blinked. "Right. Great. Maybe next time lead with a hello instead of the haunted-soul stare. You're giving tragic hero energy."
***
The girls' dormitory at the Academy of Aurelis was many things:
Loud. Cold. Full of enchanted socks that wandered at night.
But tonight, it was buzzing.
"You heard, right?"
"The Winter Moon Ball."
"They're sending invites out tonight!"
"Wait, even to us?"
"Apparently one commoner gets picked each year. It's symbolic or something."
Maria still Marin to them sat curled on her narrow bunk, pretending to read a book about plant-based enchantments. She hadn't turned a page in twenty minutes.
Across the room, her roommate Tally, a bright-eyed girl from Hollow mist, was practicing curtsies in front of a cracked mirror.
"If I get it," Tally whispered, "I'll die."
"If you get it," muttered Jessa from the bunk above, "I'll riot. They always pick someone tragic and decorative."
"Like you?" Mina piped from the hallway.
"Exactly," Jessa said proudly.
Everyone laughed. Even Maria almost smiled.
A loud knock silenced the room.
Footsteps retreated.
And then a quiet shift.
An envelope, slid under the door.
Gilded. Sealed with a wax crest.
Half the girls screamed.
Tally nearly fell off her stool.
Mina lunged for it.
"No no don't open it," said Maria quickly.
Too late.
Mina flipped it over and read aloud:
"To Marin Velyn"
A pause.
She blinked.
"Or should I say... Maria?"
Silence fell like snow.
All eyes turned to Maria.
She stood up slowly.
Walked over.
Took the letter with trembling fingers.
"It's... mine."
No one spoke.
Not until Jessa said, flatly:
"Well. Guess you're the tragic one after all."
Maria retreated to her bunk, hands shaking.
She waited for the whispers to start.
They didn't.
Because the girls weren't whispering.
They were staring.
She opened the letter with care.
Inside, in flowing ink:
"Marin
Or should I say, Maria.
I saw you.
I know.
There's a ball next week.
Valmont tradition.
You're invited.
Don't hide. Not this time.
_Seraphina."
Maria stared at the parchment until her eyes blurred.
Her name. Her real name. Written by the princess herself.
How?
Why?
What did Seraphina see?
She folded the letter. Set it in her lap.
The stars outside flickered softly.
And in her chest, the second heartbeat stirred again.
Not painful.
Just awake.
**
The marketplace outside Celestia Academy buzzed with the usual chorus of chaos vendors calling out over baskets of spiced fruit, glowing love charms, and enchanted scarves that occasionally insulted the buyer.
But today, something new drew attention. A poster. Pinned to a stone arch with a gold wax seal.
CELESTIA MOON BALL
INVITATION ONLY
ROYALS. ELITE FAMILIES. RECOGNIZED SCHOLARS.
A CELEBRATION TO UNITE THE KINGDOMS.
A group of children stood beneath it.
The oldest boy grimy boots, street-born sharpness scoffed.
"Another dance for the rich to kiss rings and step on servants."
His younger sister spun around, arms out.
"I bet they dance like this!" she giggled, twirling dramatically, crashing into a fruit crate.
A vendor cackled from his stall.
"Careful, girl! Dance like that and you'll end up inside a noble's purse!"
The others laughed but not Maria's friend Enya, who watched the poster too long.
"Wouldn't mind seeing it. Just once," she said, voice low.
"What?" the boy frowned.
"The halls. The food. The chandeliers they say breathe starlight."
They were joking again in seconds.
But the silence beneath their laughter was heavy.
The ball wasn't for them.
Not unless they snuck in or changed the story.
Within the moonlit courtyards of the academy, nobles swirled like silk in water bragging, preening, whispering lies.
Two boys Cyrus of Mirehall and Valen Dore leaned under the blossoms of a starfruit tree.
"What are you wearing to the ball?" Cyrus asked.
"Who says I'm going?" Valen replied, twirling his dueling staff.
"You think they'll let in someone who fought a headmistress's illusion tiger?"
"You got bit on the leg."
"Still counts as battle."
Across the courtyard, girls arranged in perfect rows of power and lace.
"Prince Lucien is returning," one said.
"He'll be at the head table."
"So will Seraphina," another added.
"And I swear the Valmonts are hiding something. A daughter, maybe."
A hush. Then sparks.
"Ten crowns says I beat you before the fountain chimes," Cyrus grinned.
"Please," Valen said, stepping back. "You couldn't outsell a toad."
Their duel sparked a dozen shouts and three bursts of spell fire before a professor stormed across the grass.
"NOT ON THE MOSAIC FLOOR, YOU IDIOTS!"
The courtyard scattered like birds.
But underneath the glitter and grins, one truth settled cold:
The ball wasn't a dance.
It was a test.
**
Mina flipped through a glowing scroll on Academy etiquette ("How to Not Spill Soup on a Sylvan Prince") and snorted.
"Who writes this stuff?" she muttered, then paused. The library was too quiet.
Too... still.
A shadow moved behind the far shelves.
Kai looked up, gaze narrowing. "Did you hear that?"
Before Mina could answer, a man stepped into the lamplight.
Tall. Unfamiliar robes. Smooth gloves. Eyes like gold melted in midnight.
Not a professor. Not a student.
But he smiled like he knew exactly where he was.
"Curious things, libraries," he said. His voice was low. Silken. Calm.
"So much forgotten wisdom... just waiting to be remembered."
Mina raised an eyebrow. "You lost, or just dramatic?"
Kai stiffened. There was something... wrong. Like the air around the man bent too easily. Like he belonged to something older than books.
The man looked at them both but lingered on Kai.
"Names matter," he said softly. "Especially the ones buried."
He bowed politely and walked away, his boots not making a sound on the stone.
Mina blinked. "Well. That wasn't ominous at all."
Kai didn't answer.
He was still staring at the spot the man had vanished from.
The candle beside him flickered.
And behind the shelves, the man's gold eyes glowed watching.
"Soon," he whispered. "She'll remember. And when she does... I will be waiting."
In the Hall of Ascendant Scrolls, where floating parchment whispered forgotten laws, a council of scholars debated beneath a glowing dome.
"Why now?"
"Why invite every house?"
"Something's stirring. I've seen the old sigils in the Weave."
"No. This is politics. The Valmonts move their pieces nothing more."
An advisor entered briskly, robes swirling.
"The Queen's order is clear: brilliance on display. No stammering theorists. If you can't charm a courtier, don't show up."
Outside, air-carriages docked on landing terraces, releasing noble families like carved gods: crests stitched into every sleeve, jewels singing faint enchantments.
House Mirehall. House Sorell. House Ithren arriving with silent attendants and unreadable smiles.
Each carriage was a declaration.
"We are here to be seen.
And to watch."
Across the realm from broken cobblestones to crystal towers the same truth whispered through gossip and grain, ink and magic:
The Celestia Ball was not just a party.
It was a stage.
And every player from scholar to prince, merchant to shadow
was sharpening their role.