The royal summons came wrapped in black velvet—sealed with red wax, marked by the crest of the throne that once exiled her.
Elara stared at it in silence, her gloved fingers brushing the blood-red insignia of House Virelle. Ten years. Ten years of silence. Ten years of pretending she was dead to them. And now, a single letter had dragged her back into the court of vipers that had once tried to devour her whole.
She tucked the parchment into her coat, the frost-touched wind whipping through the mountain pass. Below, the capital city stretched like a bruise across the land—Virellesca. Its golden spires gleamed even under storm-thick skies, but Elara knew better. There was rot beneath the gilded marble. Always had been.
The horses pulled the obsidian carriage onward, hooves pounding against stone like a war drum. She sat alone, back straight, eyes unreadable. Her reflection stared back at her from the window glass—long, dark hair braided like the warriors of Orivielle Academy, and eyes too sharp, too knowing, for someone her age.
She wasn't just Elara anymore.
She was something more. Something... ancient.
> "To survive the court, you must become colder than the steel at their throats."
Her mentor's voice echoed in her mind. "Kindness is remembered. But ruthlessness is obeyed."
The gates of the capital opened with a low groan. The people didn't recognize her—not the street children, not the bakers, not the guards in polished armor. Why would they? The princess they remembered had been soft-spoken, magicless, barely ten years old. A shadow in her mother's shadow.
But that girl had died the night the Queen did.
And Elara never forgot who killed her.
The palace loomed ahead, a skeletal thing of grandeur and ghosts. She felt its pull in her bones, in her blood. The Oathstone at its core would recognize her. She was still of the royal line. Still Virelle.
Even if no one wanted her to be.
The carriage slowed at the marble stairs. A steward rushed forward, bowing stiffly, though his eyes were cautious—afraid, even.
"Princess Elara," he said with forced reverence. "His Majesty awaits you in the throne room."
She stepped out without a word, the hem of her dark coat brushing ash-streaked stone. Thunder cracked above as if the skies themselves knew what her return meant.
War would not begin with swords.
It would begin with a girl they thought they buried.