Page 26 of Stolen Magic

He exhaled slowly. “The fault is mine for failing to give you a proper tour of your new home.” His voice was softer now, tinged with weariness, as if he was just as exhausted by this masquerade as I was. “Come, I’ll walk you back to your room.”

A thousand refusals sprang to my lips. I didn’t want to linger in his presence with my thoughts still tangled and my questions unresolved. But I had already avoided him most of the day; a second dismissal would only deepen his suspicions. I offered a reluctant nod, slipping my hands behind my back as I fell into step beside him.

We walked in silence, our footsteps echoing faintly off the stone. It wasn’t until we neared my chambers that he finally spoke, so quietly I almost missed his words: “You don’t have to sneak around, you know.”

“I told you, I wasn’t—” My lie faltered when he turned to look at me fully, his deep blue eyes glistening with an emotion I couldn’t name.

“I’m not angry, Gwen.” He stepped closer, his voice dropping into something softer. “The palace is now your home. You can explore as you wish, ask questions, be curious.”

I hastily looked away, heat rising at the back of my neck. He was far too observant, one of many reasons I convinced myself to dislike him. But the hatred that once came easily took much longer to arrive, and when it eventually did, it was with far less fire than before.

Before I could even formulate an answer I didn’t have, we reached my door. He didn’t linger, just handed me the lantern with a polite nod. “Goodnight, Gwen.”

“Goodnight…Callan.”

I slipped inside before he could give me a reason to linger. I shut the door behind me and leaned against it, heart pounding. The seal on my hand still pulsed, a sign that somewhere in thispalace my magic was waiting for me…but so was he, and I didn’t know which one would destroy me first.

CHAPTER 10

CALLAN

With so many thoughts vying for my attention, sleep proved impossible. After hours of tossing and turning I finally abandoned the pursuit and stepped outside.

At dawn, the training courtyard was nearly deserted, save for the distant clang of guards changing shifts at the lower gates. I stood alone near the worn stone wall, my sword resting idly beside me, untouched since sunrise. I should have been focused on my training or preparing for the demands of the day ahead.

Instead, I found myself caught in the tangled memory of last night, replaying every word and glance. Something about the encounter felt off—not because I’d found her near a place forbidden to her, a location I was fairly certain I hadn’t mentioned in one of our letters—but something harder to define.

The woman I escorted back to her chambers had perfectly matched the portrait in my mind’s gallery of Princess Gwendolyn…and yet something about it seemed different—asif an artist between our first meeting and our second had attempted to alter the canvas in subtle, inexplicable ways.

I tried to summon the memory of our first encounter during negotiations. She had been shy during this brief, formal introduction—almost fragile, her polite words stilted in her nerves. I remembered a hesitant curtsy, a smile that barely touched her lips.

My brow furrowed as I struggled to focus on specific details from the blurry recollection. Golden hair pinned with pearls, a dress of faded pale blue silk, a scent like lilacs, and a sweet innocence that adorned her countenance like the worn lace trimming her sleeves.

But the more I tried to hold onto the image, the more these foggy wisps slipped away like water through my hands—replaced by the dark-haired, guarded woman I’d found in the forbidden corridor last night.

I shook my head, trying to dispel the dissonance. Time distorted memory. With every letter we exchanged, I had likely subconsciously re-crafted the memory of my fiancée into the person Iwantedher to be—someone to protect rather than one who would make waves and potentially draw my father’s dangerous attention.

Even with this feeble explanation, the tension of suspicion coiled up my spine, stubborn and familiar. From the time I was a boy, I’d been trained to spot inconsistencies, to look for cracks beneath the polished veneer of the court.Trust, my father always said,is a luxury for fools. Suspicion, he believed, was a prince’s truest ally, especially for a future king. Though I couldn’t escape the ceaseless, exhausting games and intrigue that filled every facet of the royal court; I had hoped that I might at least find some semblance of peace with my future wife.

Yet for all my foolish romantic notions that Father had continuously reaffirmed had no place in a heart that shouldbe solely focused on duty, my training made it impossible not to detect Princess Gwendolyn’s carefully woven lies. Whatever excuse she fabricated for being caught near the forbidden vaults, being lost was not one of them. My heart had plummeted as I realized her deceit; while I didn’t expect her to immediately open herself to me, I’d hoped we could build a solid, trusting relationship and eventually learn to truly love each other.

It wasn’t the lie itself that troubled me most, but the way she’d given it—unlike the polished deceit diplomats wove in order to garner royal favor, her lie had tasted of desperation rather than ambition—sorrow and a raw, deeper emotion I couldn’t name. And that, more than anything, unnerved me.

I leaned against the cold stone wall and stared out over the empty yard as the sun crested the rooftops, burning away the mist in threads of gold. Indecision trapped me, a battle between duty and empathy. Father had taught me that loyalty to the crown came first, that doubt alone would be sufficient enough evidence to report her. But the thought of betraying the vulnerability I had glimpsed and treating her like a threat without any tangible proof made my stomach churn.

Perhaps giving her the benefit of the doubt was foolish, but unlike the other relationships my role forced me to forge, I had always wanted the bond with my future wife to be my own. Somewhere between our letters, our strange dances of words, and that brittle conversation in the night-shrouded hallway, she had already begun to become something more than a political arrangement.

While I’d mused, dawn had brightened fully into day. Even with how late we’d both retired, I assumed she was already awake. I returned my sword to its rack and hurried to her chambers as quickly as decorum allowed, hopeful that a more relaxed conversation over breakfast might dispel the uneasy shadow cast by our encounter the night before.

But she wasn’t there.

I frowned and checked our private dining room, only to find it empty. A servant informed me she hadn’t yet eaten. The gardens also offered no sign of her, nor to my quiet relief did the sealed corridor I feared she might have wandered back to. The conservatory, ballroom, and gallery additionally held only absence.

I paused in the corridor, uncertain where else to search…before a sudden idea directed me. I found her tucked away in the royal archives, half-hidden between rows of ancient tomes and forgotten histories. For a moment, I watched her from the threshold, half-hoping there had been a misunderstanding.

I had mentioned in our most recent letter that I wished to show her this room myself—one of many small gestures I’d hoped might bridge the distance that letters alone had not been enough to breach. Yet there she stood alone, intently focused on the titles in front of her. The morning light from the tall windows caught in her hair as she leaned towards the shelves, her delicate hand tracing the spines of books older than either of our kingdoms.

I fought to suppress the quiet the ache in my chest as I took a quiet step forward. “I thought we’d agreed to explore the library together.” I meant to keep my tone light, but an unintended edge of hurt tainted the words. I winced, but it was too late to take them back.

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