Her Highness, By Mistake

Chapter 3

Chapter 3: The Duke and the Oracle

The day dawned with a sullen sky, gray and heavy as if Velandria itself were holding its breath. Rain misted the palace grounds in a veil so fine it clung to Eira’s skin like static, but she barely noticed. Her thoughts were knotted, tangled with questions she hadn’t yet dared ask aloud.

Mira trailed behind her as they descended the eastern stairwell of the royal palace. “You don’t have to be afraid of him,” Mira whispered, her voice barely audible over the hush of rainfall outside the arching windows. “Duke Valenhart is just... very proper. And very tall.”

“That’s reassuring,” Eira muttered, lips twitching in wry amusement.

She wasn’t afraid. Not exactly. But the name Valenhart carried weight. After days of silently enduring stares and awkward interactions with courtiers who measured her every breath against the Lady Elyanora they remembered, today felt pivotal. Today, she would meet her betrothed’s uncle—the man said to be more feared than the king himself.

And beyond that... the Oracle. The one who saw beyond skin and soul.

The east wing was quieter, older. The stones echoed differently here, as though they remembered more. Mira guided her through a corridor where velvet tapestries shivered with every breath of wind.

They stopped outside a tall set of onyx doors. Two guards stood flanking it, their armor polished to gleam even in the gloom. Mira hesitated, her fingers brushing Eira’s sleeve.

“Don’t forget who you are,” she said softly. “Even if you don’t remember being her.”

Eira gave her a nod, but her pulse thudded against her ribs as the doors creaked open.

Inside, the audience chamber was spartan—no gilded flourishes or royal banners, only tall windows and cold stone. The Duke of Valenhart stood alone beneath one of them, back to her, hands clasped behind him.

He turned when she entered.

Tall, as Mira had said, but more than that—formidable. Duke Ronan Valenhart wore simple black and crimson, with a silver clasp bearing the family crest: a stag bound in flame. His face was carved from discipline and war, his dark gaze unreadable.

Eira bowed as she imagined Elyanora would. Graceful. Silent. Controlled.

The Duke studied her, his silence dragging long enough to make her question her posture, her very bones.

Then: “You look like her.” His voice was a blade—clean, precise, sharp enough to split assumptions in half. “But you’re not.”

Eira's breath snagged. She met his gaze. “My memory is... incomplete, Your Grace.”

A beat of silence.

“Convenient,” he said, walking a slow circle around her. “You’ve returned from the edge of death with no recollection of your duties, no grasp of your alliances, and no regard for the cost of your absence.”

A chill skittered up her spine. “I regret the pain my disappearance caused. I am trying to make amends.”

The Duke paused in front of her. “You’re not the only one who suffered.”

For a moment, the mask cracked—and beneath it, she glimpsed sorrow. Anger. Even grief. Then it was gone.

“If you truly intend to play your part, then you must understand this world as it stands,” he said. “Velandria teeters on a blade’s edge.

The bridal selection is not a game of silk and serenades—it is politics cloaked in pageantry. The bloodlines chosen now will shape the kingdom’s future.”

Eira swallowed, nodding. “I understand.”

“Do you?” he asked, and this time, she didn’t answer.

A door opened behind them. A second servant entered—pale-faced and trembling. “Your Grace. The Oracle is ready.”

Eira tensed. This was the real reason she was here.

The Duke motioned her forward. “She will see you alone.”

Mira offered a parting squeeze of her hand, but her expression was taut with worry. Then the doors closed behind Eira, and she stepped into a room unlike any she’d seen before.

It was dim and warm, the air heavy with the scent of myrrh and lavender. Veils of gauze floated from the ceiling, casting shifting shadows across the walls. A fire crackled in the hearth, though no wood lay within it—only glowing embers that pulsed with strange light.

And in the center of the room sat the Oracle.

She was small, ancient, and cloaked in folds of midnight-blue silk. Her eyes were white as pearl—blind, but Eira felt them pierce her with uncanny precision. Tattoos ran down the woman’s arms in silver ink, swirling patterns like celestial maps.

“Come,” the Oracle said, voice layered with an echo that did not belong to this world.

Eira knelt before her, trying not to tremble.

“You are not whole,” the Oracle whispered. “Two souls, not one. A fracture stitched in time.”

Eira’s breath caught. “What... what does that mean?”

“You are the borrowed breath in another’s lungs. The spark of another fate. You have been placed where you were not meant to tread.”

Eira stared. “You mean—Selis. Lady Elyanora.”

The Oracle tilted her head. “Selis sleeps, but the echo remains. She is not gone. And the thread that binds you is not yet severed.”

Eira’s pulse pounded in her ears.

“What do I do?” she asked. “Can I stay here? Or will I be pulled back?”

“Even I do not know. The loom of fate has been tampered with.” The Oracle leaned closer. “Fire surrounds you, child of another world. A prince’s flame, and another’s hunger. Both will burn. But only one will save.”

Eira’s mind reeled. “Flame... Prince Alric?”

But the Oracle only smiled—a strange, sad thing—and placed a hand over Eira’s heart.

“There is power in your soul,” she whispered. “Not all of it yours.”

A pulse of heat shot through Eira’s chest. She gasped, the sensation blooming outward like fire licking through her veins. Then it was gone.

The Oracle withdrew.

“Go now,” she said, voice growing distant. “And remember this: when the mirror breaks, the truth will bleed. Choose well, before it does.”

Eira stumbled to her feet, unsteady. The room seemed to shift around her, the veils dancing more wildly, the fire flaring and fading without cause.

The doors opened behind her.

She exited into the cold air of the corridor, where Mira waited, wide-eyed.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Mira said, steadying her.

“I might’ve,” Eira murmured.

Behind her, the Oracle’s chamber faded into silence.

That evening, back in her room, Eira stood before her mirror. Her reflection stared back—golden hair braided with meticulous care, lavender eyes too wide for calm.

But deeper still, behind the eyes... something stirred.

Not quite Selis.

Not quite Eira.

She pressed her fingers to the glass.

“Two souls,” she whispered. “One fire.”

And behind her reflection, for the briefest second, the glass shimmered—not with her image, but with something else. A flicker of shadow. A whisper of wings.

Then it was gone.