"You’re one fine gentleman. Your mother would be proud of raising such an extraordinary young man," Aralyn said with a warm smile, giving the guard’s shoulder a light, motherly pat.
The boy, no older than twenty, flushed under her praise, his earlier suspicion softening. He’d stopped her at the gates, insisting no outsiders were allowed into the Dowager’s mansion without written permission. But Aralyn had talked to him, patiently, gently, like a mother who refused to be turned away from seeing her child.
"I’m only bringing supper for my boy," she’d said, eyes glistening just enough to stir his guilt. "He’s a gardener here, my Bron. He works so hard, but I can never reach him during the day."
It took so convincing, but eventually, the guard sighed and stepped aside.
"Have a slice," she said kindly, offering him a small piece of the pie she carried.
When he accepted it with gratefulness and smiling shyly, she passed through the gates with an almost fond smile. "Take care of my Bron for , will you?"
He nodded, still chewing the pie, watching her go. He didn’t see the way her expression changed the mont she crossed the threshold.
Her smile vanished. Her eyes sharpened like drawn blades.
The warmth she’d worn monts ago was gone, replaced by a cold, simring rage that had lived in her chest for years.
She moved swiftly through the corridors, unseen, her steps silent against the marble floor. She had planned to slip into the garden, to find the one she’d co for, but then, at the far end of the hall, she saw her.
The Dowager.
Running, skirts gathered in her hands, her silver hair catching the torchlight. Even from a distance, Aralyn knew that posture, that imperious tilt of the chin. She had aged, yes, but not enough to erase the face burned into Aralyn’s nightmares.
The woman who had taken everything.
And even now, she was trying to destroy her son. Her son, who had already suffered enough because of her.
Aralyn’s hand dropped the pie basket. The crash echoed faintly, but she didn’t care. Her fingers curled around the dagger hidden in her pocket, its hilt smooth and familiar against her palm.
She followed the Dowager through the hall, her steps quickening, her fury steady.
When she finally caught up, they were alone. The long corridor was empty, lit by the falling light of the early evening sun.
"Isabella!" Aralyn’s voice rang out, low and sharp, cutting through the still air like a blade.
The Dowager stopped.
Slowly, almost regally, she turned.
Their eyes t.
And for the first ti in decades, two ghosts of the past stood face to face.
The Dowager’s eyes were already hollow, eyes that had long seen too much loss, too much guilt, too much pretending. Yet, as she looked at the woman standing before her, older now, her once-celebrated beauty dulled by ti and grief, a dagger trembling in her hand... sothing flickered in those dead eyes. Recognition. Shock.
It took her a few seconds to find her voice. The na slipped from her lips like a ghost escaping the grave.
"Aralyn..."
A bitter smile curved Aralyn’s lips. "You didn’t forget . That’s good," she said, her voice steady, each word honed sharp by decades of silence. She stepped closer, the dagger held before her like a vow. "Shout if you wish, it wouldn’t matter. I shall kill you today."
The Dowager gave a soft, disbelieving scoff. The sound was brittle, like old glass fracturing under pressure.
How strange... this woman who once bowed to her in the gilded corridors of the palace, who had always kept her eyes lowered, was now looking at her as if she were prey. Her rage was raw, unrefined, honest.
Even rabbits, it seed, grew fangs when their young were threatened.
"You see that magnolia tree out there...?" the Dowager said suddenly, gesturing toward the tall window at the end of the corridor, where the sunlight spilled faintly onto the floor.
Aralyn’s grip tightened on the dagger. She didn’t glance away. She knew Isabella’s tricks; the Dowager was a serpent who wore sorrow as easily as silk. "Don’t bother," Aralyn said coldly. "You won’t distract ."
But Isabella’s eyes... they were not sly. They were wet, trembling. Her voice broke as she continued, "That’s where he buried your child. He asked there..."
Aralyn froze.
The dagger wavered slightly in her hand.
"Right in front of my eyes," the Dowager whispered.
For a heartbeat, neither of them breathed.
The Dowager’s lips trembled. "That night, he ca to . After years of silence. After years of indifference. I thought... I thought grief had softened him." A broken laugh escaped her, sharp and trembling. "I thought he wanted . But he was only trying to keep quiet. He wanted calm. He didn’t want to ruin your peace. He ca to to lie to ."
Her voice cracked.
"He could’ve pretended to love , you know. Pretended to be kind. But he couldn’t even do that. I was his queen, and yet the only thing he gave ... was..."
Nothing but pain. That was all he gave her for the sin of loving him.
"And that’s where Hadrian buried you," the dowager whispered.
Hadrian. Her friend. Her only friend.
Even he had lied to her.
He had told her that Aralyn was gone, that he had done it for her sake, that the Royal Mistress was a danger to her reign, to her sanity. That she should grieve quietly, let go, and move on. And she had believed him. Gods, she had wanted to believe him. Because if Hadrian lied, then there was no one left she could trust.
But now, staring at Aralyn... older, hollowed, but still burning with that fierce defiance, the Dowager understood. For her sake, he had said. Perhaps for his own benefits.
Everyone had lied to her. Everyone had used her.
She had spent her life surrounded by courtiers and flatterers, her every wish obeyed, her every word weighed with reverence... and still, no one had ever seen her. The pampered niece of a powerful advisor. The queen. The dowager. A woman draped in titles and crowns, all of which ant nothing.
She had been the most powerful woman in the kingdom, and yet utterly powerless where it truly mattered.
There had been nothing she wanted that she did not receive.
Except love.
Love from the man she loved, and that, cruelly, was the only thing the world had denied her.
And now here stood Aralyn, the living ghost of that denial, dagger in hand, burning with the kind of passion the Dowager herself had lost long ago.
"Maybe my son will listen to ," the dowager said, her voice shaking.
Maybe, he truly loves ...
Aralyn pressed the tip of the dagger to the pulsing vein on the dowager’s neck.
"You are not going anywhere."
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