Merlik didn't bring the proof immediately.
He brought silence.
We moved deeper into the hideout, past collapsed tunnels and forgotten chambers, until the air grew colder and the stone smoother—older. This place had existed before the crowns learned how to lie properly.
At the end of the corridor stood a sealed door.
No insignia.
No markings.
Just a lock shaped like a sigil I had seen only once before.
On my mother's ring.
My breath caught.
Lucian stopped beside me. "You feel it too."
Merlik nodded. "Blood remembers."
The door opened with a low groan.
Inside was a small chamber—no throne, no altar. Just a table of black stone, and upon it… a wooden chest, scorched at the edges as if fire had tried and failed to claim it.
Merlik opened it carefully.
Inside lay fragments of a life the world pretended never existed.
A torn royal decree.
A broken green seal.
A child's drawing—two crowns connected by a single flower.
And a journal.
Merlik pushed it toward me.
"Read," he said.
My hands shook as I opened the first page.
My name is Liora Veyran.
If this is ever found, then I have failed to protect the truth.
The room seemed to tilt.
"She knew," I whispered.
"She always did," Lucian said quietly.
The words bled from the page.
They call me princess when it suits them.
They call me traitor when I refuse to obey.
My blood frightens them more than any army.
I swallowed hard.
Caelum Vireth smiles when he speaks of peace.
But his eyes never leave the crown.
He does not serve the king—he teaches him what to fear.
My chest burned.
"She tried to warn him," I said.
Merlik leaned against the wall. "The king trusted the minister more than his own blood."
I turned the page.
They offered me a choice.
Exile—or erasure.
I chose love.
I chose a life where my children would be born human… not symbols.
Lucian's jaw clenched.
The next page was stained.
If you are reading this, then they have already rewritten me.
They will say I betrayed my kingdom.
They will say my death was necessary.
They will say nothing of my children.
My vision blurred.
To my sons—
You were never mistakes.
You were the future they were too afraid to face.
I closed the journal.
The silence that followed was suffocating.
"They erased her name from records," Merlik said. "Burned seals. Altered bloodlines. The Verdant Veil specializes in disappearing heirs."
"And the Ashen Crown accepted the lie," Lucian added. "Because war is easier than truth."
I looked at the broken seal.
"This proves she was real," I said.
Merlik shook his head slowly.
"It proves more than that," he said.
He reached into the chest and pulled out one last item.
A signet.
Gold. Worn. Still bearing the mark of both crowns intertwined.
"The final decree," Merlik said. "Never delivered."
Lucian's eyes narrowed. "A claim."
I stepped back.
"No," I said firmly. "A truth."
Merlik met my gaze. "The same thing, to the wrong people."
I felt it then—not ambition, not hunger.
Fear.
Not mine.
Theirs.
"They didn't kill her because she loved the wrong man," I said.
"They killed her because she could end them."
Lucian nodded. "And now they hunt you… because you can finish what she started."
I clenched my fist around the journal.
"They erased the princess," I said.
"But they failed to erase the blood."
Merlik closed the chest.
"Which means," he said, "the lie is bleeding."
I looked at the signet one last time… then placed it back.
"Not yet," I said. "The world isn't ready."
Lucian smiled faintly. "Good."
I turned toward the tunnel leading back to the surface.
"Next," I said, "we don't strike with swords."
The shadows shifted.
Somewhere, far above us,
High Minister Caelum Vireth slept soundly—
Unaware that the princess he erased
had taught her sons
how to return from the grave.