To See Her Once

The music had faded. So had the laughter.

What remained was the silence that follows too much pretending.

Aurelia stood at the edge of the ballroom, the scent of wine and perfume still clinging to her like guilt. Her lips were tight, hands cold against the silk of her gown. Servants passed around her, gathering shattered glasses and wilting garlands, but none looked her way. Not after what they'd seen — her sudden disappearance, Kaelen's return alone, and the kiss between Tenebrarum and the woman everyone called princess.

She didn't move until someone approached from the shadows.

Not him.

Not Kaelen.

Just a servant with their head bowed.

"His Majesty has ordered that you be taken to your chambers."

Chambers. As though she belonged here. As though this palace was her home, and not the place where everything inside her had started to break.

Still, she nodded. She followed.

The halls were quieter now, long and dimly lit, their velvet carpets muffling every footstep like secrets being swallowed. Torchlight flickered across mirrors and portraits of cold, jewelled ancestors. The deeper they went, the less the walls looked like stone and more like bone — white, smooth, almost organic. Like she had stepped into the belly of a beast.

Finally, the servant stopped.

"This is yours."

They pushed the door open.

And Aurelia stood there, stunned by the cold beauty inside.

The room was huge. Cathedral-ceilinged. Draped in fabric that shimmered like mourning veils — shades of dusk and violet and deep wine red. A chandelier of blackened crystal dangled overhead, casting fractured light like shattered stars across the marbled floor.

The bed was enormous — too much for one body. Four posts carved into thorny branches reached upward, wrapped in dark silk that swayed softly despite the stillness. The covers were velvet, the colour of drying blood. Even the pillows looked too heavy to touch, like they might trap secrets inside them.

A dressing table stood by the window, its mirror tall and wide. Her reflection was pale inside it, unfamiliar, lost. A folded gown had been laid out in advance — ivory, sheer, something that clung. Not for sleep. Not for warmth.

Beside the fire, a bath steamed gently, lavender-scented. As if someone had anticipated she'd want to wash the night from her skin.

But it was too much.

Too beautiful. Too suffocating.

Like a golden cage.

She took a few slow steps inside, her heels silent against the polished floor. Curtains hung over the windows like bruises. Paintings watched her from the walls—women with hollow eyes, all posed like they'd once believed they were free.

She didn't undress. Didn't move toward the bed.

Just stood there.

As if the walls might shift around her.

As if she'd blink and find herself back in her tiny home, fingers still smelling of herbs, eyes never having known a demon's stare.

But this wasn't a dream.

It was a story being written around her.

One she couldn't escape.

One where the princess had already been chosen… and she wasn't her.

The door opened without a knock.

The warmth in the room evaporated.

Matrona stepped in—silent as a shadow, but colder than one. Her gown was black and rigid, not silk but something stiffer, stiffer than bone, trimmed in silver thread sharp as needles. Her posture screamed royalty. Not the warm kind. The ancient, merciless kind. The kind you bow to or die under.

The servants didn't wait for instruction.

One glance from her—and they fled.

Trays rattled, cloths dragged across the floor in their haste, and within seconds, Aurelia was alone with her. The door clicked shut behind them like the lock on a tomb.

Matrona didn't look at her.

She looked at the bed.

At the untouched wine.

At Aurelia's still body, pale against the velvet drapes like a ghost that had wandered into the wrong palace.

Then, finally, she turned.

Her gaze was precise. Clinical. Like she was deciding where to cut.

"So you are the girl," she said. Not with curiosity. With faint disgust. "You've had enough time to adjust."

Aurelia said nothing.

Matrona stepped forward once. The air seemed to follow her—tighten around her. "You'll stay here until you learn how to behave like someone worth being bought."

Aurelia's lips parted.

But Matrona cut her off. "Speak, and I will remind you that silence is safer than words."

She circled the room, trailing a single finger along the carved frame of the bed. Her expression didn't shift. It didn't need to.

"You're not special...You will never be," she murmured. "You're just lucky. And when you forget that..."

She stopped.

Right in front of Aurelia.

They were almost the same height, but somehow Matrona still looked down on her.

"You will bathe. You will smile. You will stop looking like something dragged out of the gutter. He doesn't tolerate weakness. Neither do I."

She turned sharply toward the door.

Paused.

And said, without facing her:

"Be ready. Or I'll make sure you are."

Then she left.

And the room felt darker after she was gone.

Aurelia stood at a crossroads of emotion, a tempest brewing within her heart. Pain twisted like a vine around her chest, mingling with a simmering anger that threatened to boil over. She found herself ensnared in a web of confusion, grappling with the injustice of her predicament.

Why?

She wondered if Tenebrarum had thrust her into a situation that forced her to vie for recognition against the captivating allure of Matrona.

It felt as though the very universe had conspired against her, pitting her against a girl who seemed to embody everything she was not. In that moment, Aurelia's sense of self teetered on the edge, caught in a struggle between the depths of her despair and the flames of her defiance.

----------------------------

Julius stepped off the horse, handed the reins to a stable boy without looking up, and adjusted the seal-stamped letter tucked into his sash. His face was unreadable. Just another courier from the distant provinces. Loyal. Quiet. Discreet.

But his eyes were moving—fast.

The guards let him pass with a nod, and the great iron doors of the palace groaned open.

He walked through them slowly.

Inside, warmth and perfume choked the air. Light danced from jewelled chandeliers. Servants whispered and swept past him in hurried lines, carrying wine trays and silks and messages for kings.

He kept walking, his boots silent on marble.

He had memorised every hallway, every turn, every stair that led to her part of the palace—though he was never supposed to know.

He didn't even blink when he reached Tenebrarum's wing. Just straightened his posture and handed the waxed envelope to a guard.

"A message. For His Darkness."

The guard gave him a long, silent look, then nodded and stepped inside to announce him.

As soon as the doors closed, Julius's gaze slid sideways.

A soft flicker of violet fabric.

A flash of pale skin behind the pillar-lined hallway.

His throat tightened. Just a glimpse. Just enough to ruin him.

Aurelia.

He didn't speak. He just took one quiet step back. Watched.

She was walking with one of the maids. Head down. Her wrists looked thinner than before. Her eyes—

His breath caught.

They didn't belong in this place.

He dropped his eyes the moment the guard returned.

"Tenebrarum will see you now."

Julius nodded once.

And followed.

But he left his heart behind, still standing in the corridor, staring after her like a man who didn't know how to let go.

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To be continued...