Five years, long enough to bury hope. And if the anniversary of his disappearance was approaching…then this sudden search for an heir was anything but random, but instead a carefully calculated move. They’d not only finally given up on finding their prince, but desperation had pushed them to search elsewhere, to make a different plan for the kingdom’s future.
“What happened to him?” I asked. “There are whispers that he…disappeared.”
Tomas hesitated, clearly debating how much to reveal. “He vanished without a trace or any sign of a struggle. One day he was here, the next…he was simply gone, without even witnesses to verify what might have transpired. Their Majesties have not recovered.”
I considered their words, aligning them with the rumors I’d bartered for in taverns and servant halls almost as often as I traded for secrets. The kingdom’s slow decline hadn’t begun with a war or a rebellion, but with a loss, as if more than the prince had disappeared—the last light and prosperity had vanished with him.
My eyes returned to the portrait. The artist had placed him in a chamber bathed in moonlight, stars visible beyond the arch of a window. Though the captured scene was serene, melancholy haunted his eyes, as though he knew something was coming and had already begun to disappear.
“Was there ever any theory?” I asked carefully.
The guards seemed reluctant to answer, but their reservation seemed weakened beneath the sunlight’s gentle caress upon my features. A demure look and a subtle batting of my eyelashes and they folded.
Tomas’s jaw tensed. “Plenty, but none that held.”
“Some say he was taken by the old magic,” Garrett murmured. “Others believe he was cursed, or assassinated.”
The blond guard chimed in, his voice low. “There are even whispers that he isn’t dead at all, merely…trapped.”
Trapped. The mystery beckoned me, a siren’s call impossible to resist. I stepped forward, drawn by the same tug that had pulled me into this palace and this gilded snare of a destiny I hadn’t asked for.
“Marcus.” Tomas’s tone was sharp. “This isn’t the time to spread rumors.”
But I stared at the portrait, captivated by the single wordtrapped. A shadow caught in the corner of my mind, a presence just beyond reach. I reached out hypnotically, drawn by that same pull that had wrapped itself around me since waking. My fingers brushed the edge of the gilded frame, allowing my powers to search for whatever secrets might be hidden there.
Usually, when I touched objects, I had to concentrate and consciously open myself to them, feel the stories they held like dust in the corners of a room.
But this one reached back, as if it had been waiting for me to discover it. It came in a ripple, whispered faintly beneath my skin—a flicker of memory buried too deep to grasp.
The sensation of standing still while the world turned without you, the ache of absence, the weight of being watched by something you couldn’t see. And beneath it all…a decision made in silence, heavy with consequence.
A shiver ran through me…but then it was gone.
I blinked, my fingers still on the frame, the gold now warm and unmoving beneath my hand. I drew my hand back slowly, pulse still racing, and stared into the painted prince’s eyes. Whatever had just transpired hadn’t been memory in the usual sense, but the feeling that promised a story waiting to be told…one whose exploration would have to wait for when I was no longer under watch. Although I had the strangest feeling I already knew part of the story, if I could but recall it.
I felt the weight of the guards’ scrutiny now, as if perusal alone could discern the schemes they seemed convinced I harbored. I smiled sweetly, a gesture they didn’t return.
After one last lingering look at the portrait, I tore my eyes away, and the guards urged me on. For now, I would play the role they expected: the bewildered girl who didn’t know what she’d stumbled into. But beneath that performance, my senses sharpened.
The corridors twisted like a maze I was only now beginning to understand. I counted doors. Noted turns. Watched how the light shifted as we moved deeper into the palace’s west wing. Every stone held a secret, and if I couldn’t pick a lock with my fingers, I’d pick it with my eyes.
Even though I was being led deeper into my prison, I was still a thief…and thieves watchedeverything.
Just before we turned towards my assigned room, we passed a narrow stairwell—not grand like the rest of the palace, but half-shadowed, as if trying to remain unnoticed.
The moment we passed it, a pull stirred my chest, like something half-remembered, a memory caught in fog. A cold prickle ran down my spine. I glanced back.
“You’re not permitted down that way,” Garrett snapped.
I let my hand brush the wall as we walked, fingers grazing over the rough-cut stone. A secret whispered and I pressed slightly harder, not enough to be noticed. A flicker touched my mind, faint and fragmented: footsteps retreating, a slammed door.
Someone had passed through here recently, and they hadn’t wanted to be followed.
“What’s beyond that stairwell?” I asked lightly, nodding towards the side hall.
The guards didn’t answer, but Tomas stiffened slightly, a reaction not lost to my keen observation. I smiled to myself.Curious.
Marcus, who seemed a couple of years younger than the other two, glanced in the direction that had captured my notice and hesitated. “Storage.” His answer was too quick, tinged with uncertainty that begged me to prod further.
