Isabella's POV
The southern provinces smelled like war not the kind waged with armies and banners but the quiet kind. The kind that simmers beneath smiles, hiding in alleys, whispered through lips too scared to speak aloud. It was the scent of revolution waiting for a match and I… I'd just brought the fire.
We rode into Nareth under the veil of dusk. No fanfare. No banners. Just me, Dominic, and a handful of loyal guards who didn't ask questions. The letter hadn't left my side not even for a second. An heir. My heir. The idea alone was poison. Beautiful. Terrifying and impossible.
I'd buried that truth years ago. Buried it with the body of a child I never got to hold. A child that bled out before their first breath. Who was this boy the court now whispered about? Who had taught him to claim my mark? And more importantly… why now?
We found the boy in a stone cottage outside the village hidden, quiet, and too clean for a place meant to be poor. I stepped in first. He sat by the hearth. No older than nine. Dark curls, sharp eyes. And carved into the skin above his left shoulder my crest. Burned in. He looked up at me, as if he'd known I was coming.
"You're the queen," he said. Not a question. I knelt beside him, ignoring the ache in my knees. "And you are?" "Callum." The name struck something deep in my chest. "Who gave you that mark?" He hesitated, glancing toward the back room. "My mother."
I froze.
Dominic stepped forward, tense. "Your mother. Where is she?" The boy stood and walked to the shadows. A woman stepped out and for a moment I couldn't breathe because I knew her.
Aria.
She had once been my handmaid. My shadow. My only friend. Until the day she vanished from the palace along with my unborn child's body. "I should kill you where you stand," I whispered. She didn't flinch. "You can try," she said, pulling the boy behind her. "But not in front of your son."