The room was silent save for the soft tick of the mantle clock and the whisper of flames in the hearth. The city beyond the palace walls had long since settled into night. But Thorian Vexar, Crown Prince of Aerenthia, did not sleep.
He sat in his study, the letter spread before him like a riddle carved into flesh.
Aria Valtoria.
He mouthed the name again, slowly this time. It clung to the air, like smoke.
Her handwriting had changed. Not in form—it still had the crisp strokes expected of a noble-born lady—but in tone. Precision bled through every line. There was no warmth. No flattery. Only intent.
He hadn't seen her since…
His jaw tightened.
Since the fire.
They had met only a handful of times before her marriage—at court functions, fleeting glances at hunts, a passing conversation beneath the gallery arches. She had never bowed deeply enough. Never used the right titles. She had looked at him—not with reverence, but with scrutiny.
And yet he remembered her laugh. Dry, edged. Slightly too loud for a girl of her rank.
He also remembered her silence, later—her pale face in the tribunal hall, lips bloodless, hands shaking as she faced her accusers. She hadn't defended herself. Hadn't begged. Not even when the sentence was read.
Only when they bound her to the stake had her eyes met his across the square.
She had not looked afraid.
She had looked… knowing.
As if she had expected him to be there. As if she had been waiting for that exact moment.
He hadn't thought much of it then. A witch's trick, perhaps. Or a madwoman's curse.
But now—
Now she was alive.
And writing to him.
He rose, the chair groaning faintly under his weight, and crossed to the window. The palace spires stood like silent sentinels beneath the moon. Somewhere beyond them, the Valtoria estate sprawled across the countryside, aristocratic and forgotten.
If this was a ploy, it was a bold one.
And if it wasn't—
Thorian's hand curled into a fist against the windowsill.
He had seen her die.
And yet… a memory itched at the edge of his mind. A moment he had buried, now crawling to the surface like something cold and wet.
A voice. Hers.
"We'll meet again, Your Highness. Sooner than you think."
He had dismissed it as bravado. Empty threat. Her last words before flame took her.
But now?
Now it sounded like a promise.
He turned to the sealed cabinet in the corner of the room. The guards were under strict orders not to touch it. Inside were transcripts of her trial, letters intercepted in the weeks before her execution, pages stained with blood, fear, and secrets.
He hadn't opened that cabinet in nearly two years.
Until tonight.
End of Chapter 2