Chapter Thirteen: Where Secrets Choose Their Keepers
The golden music and chatter of the gala continued behind her, but Lyra stood alone on the balcony, bathed in cold moonlight.
Her shoulders rose and fell once, slow, controlled...as if the mask she wore was beginning to crack.
Inside, laughter erupted as phones flashed and wine splashed across Aurelia's gown, the humiliation captured like entertainment instead of cruelty. The entire scene had gone exactly as planned.
It always did.
And yet…
Lyra's painted lips trembled.
She leaned over the marble railing, staring at her reflection in the still black surface of the palace lake. The girl staring back didn't look victorious.
She looked tired.
"Who even are you without the show?" she whispered.
Her bracelets shifted as she pushed her hair back, slender gold bangles sliding just enough to expose it.
The mark.
A dark rose blooming across her skin, like ink and shadow fused into flesh.
She hated it. It didn't fit the image she perfected.
For a moment, she felt something tug in her memory. A flash of firelight. A name on someone's lips. A girl falling.
Then ...gone.
Her bracelets snapped back over her wrist. Her mask followed.
"Just a stain," she whispered.
But for the first time, she wasn't sure she believed it.
She walked back into the glittering hall, swallowed by applause and spotlight as if she'd never left.
But the loneliness stayed.
The Next Morning
Aurelia woke with a headache and a vision she couldn't shake, the princess bullied at a party, Callum shielding her, Lyra laughing… and that rose.
She shook it off. Dreams weren't real.
Except it didn't feel like a dream.
Her phone buzzed.
Amara:
The sun is up. Scholars are awake. Civilization is functioning.
Amara:
Your hot proffesor is waiting 🌚...
Aurelia groaned.
She definitely wasn't ready for civilization.
At the Academy Tower...
"You're late," Ardyn said the moment she entered.
"No, Professor," she replied dramatically. "Time is a social construct. A..."
"You overslept," he interrupted.
She sighed. "Fine. I overslept."
He almost smiled. Almost.
The table was layered with scrolls, historical fragments, and a hand-drawn map of ancient Elarion.
Aurelia skimmed the manuscript they'd left off on their last meeting.
"So Lord Cyruis wasn't just the king's adviser," she said. "He practically ran the kingdom after the princess died."
Ardyn nodded, eyes focused and unusually animated. "He consolidated power slowly. Rewrote decrees while the king was mourning. Built influence through the council. And then..."
"He staged a political coup instead of a military one." Aurelia finished. "That's… almost impressive."
Ardyn stared at her. "Are you praising a traitor?"
"I'm appreciating strategy. Not morals."
"You sound like his defense attorney."
"You sound threatened by facts."
A beat of silence.
And then he laughed quiet, like he wasn't used to doing it. Aurelia couldn't help feeling her stomach flutter at the sound of his laughter.
"You're infuriating," he said.
"You're welcome."
She looked toward the page again. Royal seal. Blackened edges.
"What happened to King Augustus?" she asked softly.
"No definitive record," Ardyn replied. "Some say he disappeared. Others say he died protecting something or someone."
The rose flashed in her memory.
Unwanted. Familiar.
She closed the manuscript.
"I have to go," she said, gathering her things.
He studied her the kind of stare that saw far more than she wanted.
She was almost out of the study hall when...
"…Wait."
Ardyn stood there, posture stiff, expression carefully neutral.
"We should… establish a more direct method of communication. For scheduling. Research updates. Professional purposes."
She blinked. Then smiled slowly.
"You mean you want my number."
He looked personally offended. "I want efficiency."
"Sure," she said, handing him her phone. "Efficiency."
She saved his contact as Professor Ardyn.
When she turned to leave, he added, with an attempt at nonchalance that fooled absolutely no one:
"And don't be late again."
"I'll try," she said. "No promises."
She walked out.
He stared down at her name on his screen too long.
They weren't close.
Not yet.
But something had shifted.
And neither of them could deny it anymore.
Outside
Students were scattered across the courtyard, half gossiping about the gala, half refreshing group chats for leaked photos. Aurelia ignored all of it.
She wasn't looking for attention anymore.
She was looking for answers.
She spotted him beneath the oak.
"Cal!"
He looked up, and concern replaced his grin immediately.
"You okay?" he asked. "You disappeared fast yesterday."
"I'm fine." She sat beside him. "But I need to know everything. About that mark. I saw it... in one of my dreams Cal."
"Dreams... What dreams?" Cal was curious.
Aurelia hugged her knees to her chest, eyes rimmed with a tired, stubborn light.
"It isn't just pictures," she said, voice small but steady. "It feels like I'm living through someone else's memories. Like I'm there...and it's always the same girl. A princess. My age, maybe younger. I can feel what she felt, the smells, the heat and the exact weight of her shame. I can feel how it tightens her throat. I can taste the iron when he...when he dies, her lover. And when another girl laughs at her, it's like someone punches me from the inside."
Her fingers dug crescent moons into her palms.
"I haven't told Amara. She'd think I've lost it. But I..." She swallowed. "I told you because I needed someone who'd look at me and not laugh."
Cal's jaw tightened. He looked like a man trying to fit a hundred scattered pieces into a puzzle that kept rearranging itself. He thumbed the edge of his phone, eyes flicking to the image of the dark rose he'd saved.
"That mark," he murmured. "It's on the archive page. It was on that princess. It's on your wrist, except yours glows like it's alive. That can't be coincidence."
He finally met her gaze, and something shifted in his expression ... not fear, not disbelief, but a fierce, quiet loyalty. The kind of loyalty that didn't need proof to choose a side.
"You trusted me with this," he said. "We'll find out why."
It should have calmed her, but instead, the air felt heavier.
Aurelia wanted to believe she was safe in the present... that dreams were just dreams, but a cold certainty whispered beneath her ribs: memories felt like this. Memories had edges. They carried consequences.
If the past was bleeding into her sleep, then whatever had started… wasn't finished.
Cal leaned in, voice low and steady.
"There's a warning in that book, the one about two roses. It talks about envy, betrayal… and a stem that binds them. If your mark matches hers; if the past is waking..."
He hesitated, searching her eyes, then finished quietly:
"...then the prophecy didn't end. It just paused."
Aurelia didn't speak.
Because suddenly, it didn't feel like she was remembering a story.
It felt like the story was remembering her.
And memories that return after centuries don't come back gently.
They come back as warnings.