And the conversation between High Preceptor and Ravik… she had heard it out of context. A fragment. Nothing more. That was how rumors were born—out of half-truths and overheard shadows.
Nothing was happening.
Of course not.
She tilted her head back, staring at the ceiling. Too many things were shifting at once. It was no wonder her body had rebelled and her mind made conclusion where there was nothing to chase. The case was closed. She couldn't let it fall apart again.
She looked down and reached slowly for the package, tracing the edges with her fingertips before unwrapping the fabric.
Inside, she had expected to find jewelry, some gleaming heirloom meant to display wealth or status. But instead, her breath caught as her eyes landed on something unexpected.
A book.
She ran her fingers over the emerald cover, her heart pounding in an unfamiliar way. The title,The Songs of Sunlight and Moondust, was etched in elegant gold script, the leather cover worn with age.
Evelyne stood abruptly, her fingers tightening around the worn edges of the book as she flipped through its pages. It was not just any book. It was a collection of fairy tales and legends from the land her mother had come from. Banned in Edrathen.
She traced the inked illustration on the first page—a silver wolf standing atop the crest of a waterfall, his head raised to the sky where two moons shone brightly. Evelyne could almost hear her mother's voice, recounting the tale of the Moonlit Court, a hidden kingdom where spirits wove their magic into the fabric of the world. There were stories of dragons who could shift into human form and fall in love with queens, of people who spoke the language of birds, of forgotten gods whose names were etched in the constellations.
She had believed in them once.
Not in the stories themselves, but in what they represented. She clung to them, convinced that if she searched hard enough, a hidden world might reveal itself. A place where her mother still lived between the pages.
She had grown up since then. Learned to fold wonder into silence, to press fantasy beneath duty. Like all things magical, she buried it beneath the past.
How had he known?
Evelyne blinked hard, her lip quivering once before she caught it between her teeth. She would not cry. Not for something as foolish as a childhood story—no matter how tenderly remembered.
But the damage had already been done. A thread pulled loose, too quietly to stop.
She exhaled and hid the book under her windowsill. No need to provoke the consequences. Her fingers tapped once, twice, on the wood. A grounding rhythm. A borrowed heartbeat.
This time would be different.
It had to be.
But she could not shake the quiet thought, curling at the edges of her mind like mist:
What if red is the only color that has ever suited her?
Chapter 12
The sun had only just begun to rise when Evelyne finally slipped free from her riding lessons. Isildeth had found her on the steps of the stables, brushing flecks of dust from her sleeves, and in that gentle, grandmotherly voice suggested she “pay a visit to the shrine.”
Evelyne had not argued.
The corridors of the castle were still and cool. She moved without escort and ceremonial robe. Here, in this hidden corner of her own fortress, she was not a princess. Just Evelyne. A woman with too many expectations braided into her hair and too few places to exhale.
She descended the stairs past the Hall of Seals, down into the ancient parts of the castle where the dust never quite left the air. The shrine was buried deep, nestled beneath the west wing.
The door creaked open with familiar resistance, and the air within greeted her like an old friend—warm, scented faintly with cedar ash and crushed milfoil. The oval chamber stretched out before her, carved beneath the ground and ringed with pale columns. Above the very center of the room, the ceiling opened in a perfect circle to the sky.
She walked in quietly. A figure stood at the far end, lighting a bundle of incense in the iron basin beside the hearth. The smoke curled upward in elegant trails, rising toward the sky-hole.
“Highness,” said a voice, deep and warm, without turning. “I was told you might come.”
Evelyne smiled softly. “Told, or divined?”
