The King Who Forgot My Face

I'm guilty of survival.

That's what I said.

That's what echoed through the courtroom like a curse no one knew how to lift. I didn't shout it. I didn't weep or plead. I just let it hang in the air like the last breath of a dying woman — which I was, once.

They didn't punish me.

They didn't clear me either.

They just… let me go.

And that, I've learned, is worse.

Sorelda didn't scold me when I returned. Clarisse didn't gloat. There was no slap, no cold soup dumped at my feet, no orders to scrub the floors until my knees split. Only silence. Sharp, calculating silence — the kind that wraps itself around your throat and waits for the next opportunity to tighten.

It's not mercy.

It's a prelude.

So I didn't eat that night. I didn't sleep either. I sat by the dying hearth in the corner of the servants' quarters and kept my hands wrapped around nothing, waiting for the next blow that never came.

Then, just before dawn, it arrived.

A note slid under the door.

No greeting. No name. Only:

Come. Supper.

I held the paper in both hands, reading it again and again until the ink blurred. The seal was waxed black — royal, but not official. It didn't come through servants' hands. It didn't come from the household steward.

It came from him.

The man who signed the writ that lit my pyre.

The man who used to hold me like I was both storm and shelter.

Kaelen.

I folded the paper without tearing it. I didn't ask permission. I didn't tell anyone. I just dressed.

Someone had left a gown for me. Deep maroon, high-necked, severe. Clean lines, unadorned. It fit well enough, which meant it had been made — or at least altered — for me.

That alone told me everything: this wasn't an ambush.

This was a test.

And I intended to pass.

The palace gates opened like a breath caught in the throat of the world. I hadn't stepped through them since my death. Not as Elira. Not with this body, this silence, this secret burning behind my ribs like an ember no wind could reach.

I passed through corridors I once danced in. Looked at walls I helped paint. Heard my footsteps echo in places that used to echo back with laughter, music, steel.

No one met me.

No guards flanked me.

No one said my name.

And yet… they watched.

They always watch.

I was led — wordlessly — to a private dining chamber lit in soft amber tones, the hearthfire casting flickers against the stone. The air smelled of rosemary and smoke. The food was untouched.

And he was already there.

Kaelen.

He stood with his back to me, one hand braced on the mantel, staring into the flames like he'd forgotten how warmth worked.

He didn't speak.

Didn't turn.

Only lifted his chin slightly and said, "Sit."

I sat.

He poured two glasses of wine. No toast. No words. We drank in silence.

I waited for him to say my name.

He didn't.

Instead, he asked, "Do you know why I summoned you?"

I wanted to laugh.

No, scream.

But all I said was, "Because I didn't kneel."

He glanced at me — just once. A flick of his gaze, like a knife drawn and sheathed in the same breath.

"No," he said. "Because you reminded me of someone I used to know."

My throat dried.

"She died," I said.

"Did she?" he asked, voice low.

It wasn't a trap.

It wasn't suspicion.

It was grief.

Raw. Wound-deep. So unexpected it made my breath catch.

"She would have been your queen," I said.

"She was," he answered, too quickly.

Then came the silence again, thicker this time, as if it carried weight from both of us.

He set down his glass and unrolled a parchment on the table between us.

Royal lettering. A temporary appointment. No salary. No status.

"You'll assist the recordskeeper in the archives. You read, I assume?"

"I do," I said.

"You'll start tomorrow."

That was it.

No questions. No warnings.

No clue whether he recognized my voice, or the shape of my eyes, or the way I sat with my spine always slightly tense from years of armor and crowns and battlefields no one ever saw.

But I knew this was a doorway.

Not a kindness.

Not an apology.

A door.

And I would walk through it, even if it sliced my feet open.

He stood, and so did I. His shadow stretched across the stone as he moved past me. And just before the door opened, he paused.

"There's something about you," he said, almost to himself.

"You should forget it," I whispered, too quiet for him to hear.

Then he was gone.

And I was alone again, in a room full of warmth I couldn't touch.

Pain Conversion: 28%

System dormant.

No skills unlocked.

I left with the scroll clutched tight in my hand and my breath burning like frost in my chest.

They thought they buried the queen in flames.

But ash doesn't vanish.

It waits.