Lucien did not wake all at once.
Consciousness returned to him in thin, reluctant strands—sound first, then sensation, then the slow, unwelcome awareness of weight. His body felt submerged, not in water, but in something thicker, heavier. As if the air itself pressed down on him, refusing to let him rise.
There was a sound beneath everything else.
Not wind. Not breath.
Water.
It moved with a patience that unsettled him, neither hurried nor still. A rhythm older than any clock, older than the palace stones that ringed the royal grounds. It pulsed steadily, as if the earth itself had a heartbeat.
Lucien lay unmoving, eyes closed, afraid that opening them would break whatever fragile balance kept him conscious.
Cold had seeped into him. The marble beneath his back leeched warmth without mercy, and dampness clung to his clothes, heavy along his sleeves and collar. His fingers twitched weakly, brushing against crushed leaves and soil.
The garden.
Memory arrived like a blade slipping between ribs.
The council chamber.
The suffocating politeness.
The tightening in his chest.
The whisper—soft at first, then unavoidable.
Lucien.
His breath caught.
The voice was closer now.
Not louder—never louder—but nearer, as though it no longer needed to reach for him.
You fell again, it said, without accusation.
Slowly, Lucien opened his eyes.
Moonlight filtered through the trellis above him, fractured by climbing ivy and the pale blooms of night-flowers whose names he had never learned. Shadows clung to every surface, stretching unnaturally long, as though the garden had grown deeper while he slept.
For a moment, he thought he was alone.
Then he felt it.
The weight of being observed.
Not by eyes—but by memory.
Lucien drew a shallow breath and rolled onto his side, pain flaring sharply along his ribs. He hissed through clenched teeth, pressing a hand to his chest as dizziness washed over him in a dark wave.
"How long…?" he whispered, though there was no one to answer.
The whisper responded anyway.
Long enough.
His stomach tightened.
He pushed himself upright, movements slow and deliberate. The world tilted, but did not collapse this time. Dew soaked through the fabric of his trousers as his knee pressed into the grass. His vision swam, then steadied.
The garden was wrong.
Not empty—waiting.
Lanterns that should have burned along the paths were dark. The soft murmur of guards, ever-present even at night, was gone. No footsteps. No voices drifting from distant corridors.
Lucien swallowed.
"They cleared it," he murmured.
Yes.
"Why?"
The river did not answer immediately.
That silence frightened him more than the voice ever had.
Lucien forced himself to stand. Each breath scraped against something raw inside him, as though his lungs had forgotten how to work without effort. He leaned briefly against the stone edge of a planter, grounding himself in its solidity.
Stone remembered less than water.
That thought came unbidden—and lingered.
He began to walk.
The garden path curved gently eastward, leading toward the oldest boundary of the palace grounds. He had walked this route countless times before, escorted by tutors or shadowed by guards who pretended not to be there.
Now, the path felt narrower.
The hedges seemed taller, their leaves overlapping just enough to obscure what lay beyond. Shadows shifted as he passed, stretching toward his feet, retreating when he stopped.
Lucien's heart beat faster.
"You're doing this," he accused quietly.
You are noticing, the whisper replied. There is a difference.
He stopped at the edge of the hedges.
Beyond them lay the river.
It revealed itself slowly, like a secret reluctant to be shared. Moonlight caught on its surface, shattering into pale, broken lines that trembled with the current. The water was darker than the sky above it—too dark, as though it swallowed light instead of reflecting it.
Lucien did not step closer.
This was where it had begun.
He remembered being small, his hands scraped raw from climbing down the stones along the bank. He remembered the way the water had felt—cold, yes, but not empty. The way it had seemed to lean toward him, curious.
Back then, he had thought it was imagination.
Children were allowed that luxury.
You came here when no one was watching, the river murmured. Even then.
Lucien exhaled slowly. "I didn't know what you were."
Neither did she.
The word tightened something in his chest.
"My mother," he said.
The river's surface rippled, though there was no wind.
She listened better than you do.
A faint, humorless smile touched his lips. "She always did."
He took another step forward. The ground near the river dipped unevenly, stones half-swallowed by moss and time. This part of the garden was older than the rest—older than the palace itself, if the records were to be believed.
Records could be edited.
Water could not.
Lucien knelt at the river's edge.
The cold radiating from it seeped into his bones, but he did not retreat. Slowly, hesitantly, he reached out and let his fingers brush the surface.
The reaction was immediate.
The world lurched.
Cold surged up his arm, sharp and biting, but beneath it was something else—recognition. Images flooded his mind, not as visions but as impressions:
Stone sinking beneath rising water.
Voices arguing in a chamber sealed with sigils.
A woman standing alone by the river, blood on her sleeve, defiance in her eyes.
Lucien gasped and jerked his hand back, collapsing onto the stones behind him.
"No," he whispered. "That's not—"
It is, the river said. Not all truths are gentle.
His heart hammered violently in his chest.
"She didn't die of illness," he said, the words tasting like betrayal.
The river flowed on.
That was answer enough.
Lucien laughed softly, the sound brittle and wrong. "So that's it. That's what they buried."
Among other things.
His laughter stopped.
"What else?"
The river did not answer.
Footsteps sounded behind him.
Lucien turned sharply, pain flaring anew as he pushed himself upright. A figure stood at the edge of the path, half-shrouded in shadow. A single lantern hung from their hand, its flame turned low, as though deliberately restrained.
Not a guard.
Not quite.
"Your Highness," the figure said calmly. "You should not be here alone."
Lucien straightened, forcing authority into his posture even as his body protested.
"And yet," he said evenly, "I am."
A pause.
"Yes."
Lucien looked back at the river.
"They sent you to watch," he said. "Not to help."
Another pause—longer this time.
"We were told to intervene only if necessary."
"Necessary for whom?"
Silence.
Lucien smiled thinly.
"Tell the council this," he said, voice quiet but unyielding. "I heard the river. Just like she did."
The lantern flame flickered.
The figure stiffened almost imperceptibly.
Lucien stepped away from the river, each movement measured, deliberate. He did not look back as he continued.
"And tell them," he added, "that if they intend to decide my future, they will do so with me awake."
Behind him, the river surged—just once—its current pressing hard against the stones as if in agreement.
At last, it whispered.
Lucien walked back toward the palace, leaving wet footprints on the marble path. Above him, the towers loomed—silent, ancient, afraid.
And far beneath them, something long restrained began, slowly, to rise.