Page 45 of Revert
I wanted to question him, demand answers, but instead I clung to the only words that slipped beneath my defenses like sunlight through the cracks. “You lured me to your room just for this?” Despite my best attempts to pretend, I couldn’t even feign annoyance, not when I was secretly touched by the risk he’d take for such a seemingly inconsequential gesture.
He hesitated before tentatively nodding. “You have no idea how dangerous such simple words can be. They represent more than consideration—they’re a form of care, a weakness the king doesn’t tolerate. That’s why I keep my distance and push people away, because if I don’t…” His jaw clenched. “…they don’t last.”
He hadn’t saidyou, but I heard it anyway. He cared…and both of us were afraid of what that meant.
His shoulders tensed, as if the glimpse of vulnerability he’d shown had closed some invisible door. I knew I would gain nothing more from him tonight. Perhaps it was for the best; I could hardly process the revelations already whirling through my mind.
At the forefront was the memory of the softness in his touch and the tenderness with which he’d held me, sending another ripple of confusion through my chest. I tried to bury the flare of vulnerability, to smother it beneath logic and purpose, but it didn’t go quietly.
If everything before had been illusion, it didn’t explain what had happened in the dungeon, nor the dream where I loved and trusted him…before dying by his hand. No motives could justify or undo that. Yet even now, I desperately wanted to believe he’d never harm me.
I wanted to cling to my anger and the bitterness that had kept me steady for so long, but I had misplaced it somewhere during our interaction. Part of me hoped I never found it again, nor that this captured moment would never end.
And yet it was inevitable. I watched as his openness vanished and his mask fell back into place with practiced ease. This time, the lock wasn’t as tight, the key within my reach if I was brave enough to discover what other secrets he guarded. Before I could even attempt to hold onto it, he moved to the door, but paused before opening it.
“I should walk you back to your chambers. It wouldn’t do for us to be discovered. And sleeping so close to you—it’s already hard enough to resist you during the day.” He didn’t look at me when he spoke again, his voice quieter now. “In fact…you should forget this entire conversation ever happened.”
I saw the wisdom of his suggestion and knew it would be safer to go back to the way things had been before, yet my heart thudded painfully in resistance. “I…can’t do that.”
“Even though it’s for the best…neither can I.” His voice was barely above a whisper, so quiet I likely wasn’t meant to overhear. The rawness in his voice told me just how much he meant it.
He held the door open in silence, waiting. I didn’t immediately move, bound by my desires to stay, to curl back into his arms and pretend—for just one more moment—that this connection between us wasn’t dangerous, that I could believe in him. But the wiser part knew that to linger was to court ruin.
I stood slowly, reluctantly. As I passed him, his hand brushed lightly against the small of my back—the same place it had rested in my dream, a touch so brief it could’ve been imagined if not for the way it ignited every nerve beneath my skin.
We walked the halls in silence, not speaking until we reached the shadowed corridor near my door. “I meant what I said earlier,” he whispered.
I turned to him. “About what?”
He didn’t answer. Before I could repeat my question or beg him not to pull away, he stepped back into the dark and was gone.
I stood alone in the shadowy corridor, the echo of his words trailing behind him like the wisps of memory that seemed to flutter in and out of reach. And though I told myself it would be best to heed his suggestion and forget, I knew I never would.
CHAPTER 13
Investigations were far more difficult to conduct when one’s mind was a tangle of sleepless questions with no clear answers. Morning sunlight streamed through my windows like a lie, deceptively warm and gentle, a soft contrast to the storm churning inside me.
Sleep had offered no rest, only echoes. Dreams too vivid—of arms that had once held me like I mattered, of tender words that still whispered across my skin:you could ask for the kingdom, and I think I would have to give it to you.
I moved through my morning routine like a ghost, caught in a fog between clarity and confusion. I felt Liora’s worried glances, but was too consumed with my own thoughts to reassure her. I had come here with a mission, but with every step, I felt myself drifting further from it. No matter how I tried to file last night away under manipulation or distraction, the pieces refused to fit.
But the memory of tenderness could only linger so long. Caution enfolded me like armor as I stepped into the palace corridors. I had secrets to uncover, and whatever had passed between Castiel and me in the shadows, I couldn’t afford to forget my purpose.
The court felt quieter today, the invisible surveillance that constantly followed more pointed and watchful. I told myself I was imagining it, but no hollow reassurance could ease the unsettling sense that the shadows trailing behind me no longer felt like just mine.
I made my way towards the library, intending to bury myself in research in hopes of unearthing something,anything, that might lead me closer to the truth. But I slowed at the faint murmur of voices drifting from the corridor off the antechamber—the one that curved towards the throne room.
Apprehension prickled across my skin with each step, instinct urging me to turn around. One of the first rules of the royal court: never disturb Their Majesties in a private meeting. But then I heard it—Castiel’s voice. Though the words were muffled, one phrase cut through with unmistakable clarity: “…Princess Bernice…”
My heart gave a sharp jolt at the sound of my name. Despite the alarms sounding frantically in my head, warning me back, curiosity eclipsed caution, snuffing out the very instinct that had kept me alive thus far. I wasn’t meant to be here, and yet something in the air tugged at me, as though an invisible thread had wound itself around me and was drawing me forward.
The ornate doors ahead were slightly ajar, just enough for sound to slip through. That alone was unusual, though the hard, suspicious looks the guards stationed outside gave me were more standard. I knew I couldn’t linger under their watchful gaze, but I was desperate to know what they were saying about me.
I continued down the hall before making a turn and doubling back down the corridor that ran behind the throne room. This entrance was also slightly ajar—perhaps to air out the stuffy room—and was likewise guarded. But the guards hadn’t yet noticed me, so if I could find a way to creep closer…
“Your Highness.” The low voice made me jump and I spun, wide-eyed, to face Halric.
“What are you doing here?” I hissed, though I knew the answer as clearly as he did. He was following orders, which were to keep a close eye on me. My guards had been on high alert all morning after I’d evaded them the night before.
