Rain lashed the windows of the Ashthorn estate, echoing through its empty halls like a chorus of forgotten ghosts. Evelyne sat at her desk, the fire in her hearth crackling low, casting flickering shadows on the pages before her.
She had opened an old box one she swore she'd never touch again.
Inside were letters. Yellowed, faded, some still sealed. Letters she wrote in prison. Letters that were never sent. Letters that were never read.
One, in particular, bore a name in careful script: Lucien Dareth, Crown Prince of Caerthwyn.
She stared at it for a long moment.
Then tore it open.
The ink inside had bled slightly from the years, but the words remained sharp as razors.
"If you loved me, why did you say nothing as they dragged me away?"
"Was your silence loyalty to the throne or cowardice in the face of truth?"
"I died, Lucien. But you… you buried me long before the flames touched my skin."
She read the words over and over until they blurred.
Then she threw the letter into the fire.
Later that night, Evelyne wandered the estate grounds beneath a cloak, rain soaking through silk. She found Julian in the stables, brushing down a black stallion.
"You're not sleeping," he noted.
"I rarely do anymore," she said.
Julian looked at her sideways. "I remember when you used to sneak into the library at midnight just to read poetry."
"I remember when you used to cover for me," Evelyne replied with a half-smile. "Back when you believed I was innocent."
Julian's hands stilled.
"I always believed you," he said quietly. "I just didn't know how to fight for you."
Evelyne looked away.
"I don't need anyone to fight for me now."
"No," he said. "But maybe… you don't have to fight alone."
She said nothing. Because trust wasn't something she could afford anymore not even for blood.
At the palace, Silas Marrow knelt before the Queen in the shadowed council chamber.
"She's gathering support from House Elowen," he reported. "And there are whispers of an alliance with the Southern Lords."
Queen Viora sipped her wine. "How poetic. The ashes of the forgotten rising again."
"She's more than poetry," Silas said. "She's a reckoning."
The Queen's smile was thin. "Then let her come. I'm curious to see how far the girl will go before she breaks again."
But even as she spoke, she felt it.
A shift.
A coming storm.
And Evelyne Ashthorn, once dismissed as ruined, was now the ghost at every table, the fire beneath every alliance, the sword just behind every smile.
And this time
She would not break.