The guards led Beatrice through a set of tall iron gates, and suddenly the palace's cold stone world gave way to something else entirely.
The royal garden.
She stepped inside and felt herself exhale without meaning to.
It was breathtaking — and that wasn't a word Beatrice used lightly anymore. Flowers of every color stretched in careful rows: deep crimson roses, pale lavender hydrangeas, golden marigolds, and blossoms she couldn't even name. The air smelled sweet and green and alive. Bees drifted lazily between petals. Butterflies — white and amber and the softest shade of blue — floated through the morning light like living confetti.
It was obvious that the royal gardeners poured hours of their lives into this place every single day. Every plant was perfect. Every hedge was shaped with intention. The garden wasn't just beautiful. It was cared for.
At its heart stood a large fountain — square-shaped, three tiers tall, with pale stone carved into elegant curves. Blue water lilies bloomed across its surface, drifting gently on the still water like they had nowhere to be and no reason to hurry.
And just behind the fountain, a few short steps away, sat a gazebo.
Its domed roof was draped in purple wisteria — thick, heavy clusters of blossoms hanging down like a curtain of lavender lace. Morning dew dripped slowly from the vines, each drop falling in quiet, steady rhythm. The sound of it was soft. Almost musical.
Beneath the gazebo, seated in a cushioned chair with a porcelain teacup in hand, was Prince Henry von Devereux II.
Second prince of the Avelangia Empire.
Beatrice's fiancé.
He looked exactly as he always did — impeccably dressed, posture perfect, blonde hair neatly swept back. Handsome in the way a sword was handsome: cold, precise, and designed to cut.
He was mid-sip when he noticed her.
His brows drew together. His jaw tightened.
A quiet 'tsk' escaped him — involuntary and telling.
"What are you doing here?" His voice was low and rough with irritation, like gravel dragged across stone.
"I was invited to the palace," Beatrice replied. Her tone was calm. Even. Completely unbothered.
It was a sharp contrast to his cold tone— and she knew it. She'd learned long ago how to keep her voice steady even when the world around her wasn't.
Henry rubbed his forehead, looking like a man who had just been handed a problem he didn't want to solve. "Invited. Must be my mother's doing again,"
he muttered under his breath. Then he looked at her directly. "You've seen me. Now leave."
"I can't," Beatrice said simply. "It would be rude to leave the palace without first greeting Her Majesty. She's the one who invited me."
Henry set his teacup down with a quiet clink against the saucer.
His eyes — jade green, sharp and cold as cut glass — swept over her once. It was the kind of look that made most people shrink. The kind of look that said you are an inconvenience I am barely tolerating.
Beatrice didn't shrink.
She met his gaze and waited.
He understood, of course, what "greeting Her Majesty" meant. Beatrice would have to stay until the Empress was available to receive her. That could be a while.
"Sit then," he muttered, gesturing toward the empty chair across from him with all the enthusiasm of a man surrendering to the inevitable. "No point in giving my mother another reason to lecture me."
Beatrice gathered her skirts and sat down quietly.
For a moment, the garden filled the silence between them — the low hum of bees, the soft drip of dew from the wisteria, the occasional rustle of leaves in a passing breeze. It was almost peaceful.
Henry broke it, as he always did.
"Let's make this quick," he said. "I have training."
Beatrice nodded. She had no desire to make it long either.
She let her eyes drift past him to the fountain, where the blue water lilies floated in lazy circles on the surface. She wasn't sure why she kept looking at them. There was something about them — their color, the way they moved, the way the light caught their petals — that tugged at something deep in her chest.
Then it hit her. Sudden and sharp, like a match being struck in the dark.
"You said you liked water lilies, so I brought you some."
A voice.
Low and warm and achingly familiar. A flash of memory — or something that felt like a memory — flickered across her mind before she could catch it.
Her fingers curled against her lap.
Her chest tightened.
That feeling again. That awful, aching pull beneath her ribs — like a word sitting on the tip of her tongue that she couldn't quite speak aloud. Her vision swam for just a second, and in that second she could almost see it:
A silhouette, kneeling in front of her.
Warm tears on an unseen face.
A trembling voice whispering — "Don't leave me behind…"
...Beatrice.
"Beatrice."
She blinked hard.
Henry was staring at her from across the table, a frown carved deep between his brows. Not out of worry. Out of annoyance.
"Did you hear anything I just said?"
"My apologies," she answered honestly. "I didn't."
He scoffed — short and sharp. "Figures. You're always somewhere else in your head." He leaned back, crossing his arms. "I'm warning you now — if you embarrass me at the banquet next week, I won't hesitate to have you removed from my side. Don't test me."
Beatrice looked at him.
It was a quiet look. Steady and distant at the same time, like she was seeing past him to something far away. She didn't mean it as a challenge. She was simply too tired, in that moment, to perform the expected response.
But something in her expression made Henry pause.
Just for a second. A flicker of something she couldn't name crossed his face before he shut it down, cleared his throat, and stood.
"I'm done here," he said briskly. "Tell my mother I greeted you properly."
He walked away without waiting for a response.
Beatrice watched him go, then let out a slow, quiet breath.
The guards moved in around her again, falling into their usual formation.
"Let's go to the West Wing," she said.
The West Wing — also known as the Empress's Palace — was the oldest part of the royal residence. Generations of empresses had lived and breathed within its walls. It sat in the northwest corner of the palace grounds, separated from the main building by a covered walkway lined with tall white columns.
One of the guards shifted beside her. "Lady Laporte, Her Majesty may not be in her chambers at this hour. She's likely in the throne room with His Majesty for the morning briefing."
"Then I'll wait for her in her chamber," Beatrice said.
A pause settled over the group of guards. Even with their helmets hiding their faces, Beatrice could feel their hesitation. It wasn't a common request — noble ladies didn't usually insist on waiting alone in the Empress's private quarters. Protocol existed for a reason.
But they had no real grounds to refuse her.
And something in Beatrice's voice — quiet, certain, leaving no room for argument — made pushing back feel more difficult than simply obeying.
"Very well, Lady Laporte," the lead guard said at last. "We'll escort you."
The formation shifted, and they moved deeper into the palace.
The garden fell away behind her.
But the deeper they walked, the stranger Beatrice felt.
That pull in her chest — the one she'd been carrying since she stepped onto the palace grounds this morning — was growing. Quietly. Steadily. With every corridor they passed through, every corner they turned, it became harder to ignore.
Like something was drawing her forward.
Like something here was waiting.
The West Wing corridors were stunning in their own way — pearly marble floors polished to a shine, tall windows draped in embroidered curtains that turned the sunlight gold, and long rows of ancestral portraits hanging on either side of the hall.
Empresses from centuries past stared down at her from gilded frames, one after another.
Yet beneath all that elegance was something else.
A coldness.
A hollow emptiness.
Something not even the extravagant luxury could hide.
The portraits— they looked lifeless as if they are haunted by their worst nightmares.
It's as if they were alive and watching her and waiting for the day her own portrait would be hung among them.
Beatrice swallowed.
A cold unease moved through her chest, slow and creeping.
And then —
…Beatrice.
She stopped walking.
It was barely a sound. Less than a whisper. More like the idea of a whisper — soft as a breath, close enough that it should have come from someone standing right beside her.
But no one had spoken.
The guards continued a step ahead before one of them noticed and turned back.
Beatrice stood very still in the middle of the corridor.
Her heart was beating too fast.
Her eyes moved slowly down the hallway — past the portraits, past the curtained windows, toward the far end where the corridor curved out of sight.
The pull in her chest had stopped being subtle.
It was pulling now. Deliberate and insistent, like a hand wrapped around her ribcage, gently but firmly tugging her forward.
Toward whatever — whoever — was waiting around that corner.
"Lady Laporte?" the guard asked carefully. "Is something the matter?"
Beatrice pressed her hand flat against her sternum.
Her pulse hammered beneath her palm.
"…No," she said quietly.
But it was a lie.
And she suspected, somehow, that whatever waited at the end of that corridor already knew it.