The Hidden Princess

Chapter 3

Lysander watched this exchange. The child's trauma. Her attachment is already forming to Ethel. The Nanny's relief. The absolute horror of the living conditions.

"Will you come back?" Lisa asked, her voice still that same flat monotone, but there was something in it now—the tiniest thread of something that might have been hope, or might have been fear of having hope.

The question hit Ethel like a physical blow.

"No," he said, and watched her face fall—the first real expression, a flicker of loss. "No, Lisa, I'm not coming back. Because you're coming with me."

The girl's eyes widened.

The Nanny gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. "Your Highness, you can't—the Emperor will—"

"The Emperor," Ethel said, standing and scooping Lisa into his arms in one smooth motion, "should have thought of that before he left his daughter to rot." She weighed nothing. Less than nothing. The atlas pressed between them, and Lisa clutched it like a lifeline. "You're coming too, Nanny. Pack whatever you need. We leave now."

"Your Highness," the Nanny sobbed, "I have nothing to pack. This child is all I've lived for these six years. If you're taking her, then I'll follow you to the ends of the earth."

"Ethel," Lysander said urgently, his mind snapping back to tactical concerns. "The patrol changes in eight minutes. We need to move."

But even as he said it, Lysander was thinking ahead: We're taking her to the Valeria estate. Father will need to know immediately. We'll need a physician—someone trustworthy. We'll need to keep her hidden while we figure out what makes her valuable. And we'll need to investigate Eleanor's bloodline because I have a very bad feeling about what we're going to find.

Ethel adjusted his grip on Lisa, making sure she was secure. She was so light it was terrifying. "Can you walk, Nanny?"

"I'll crawl if I must, Your Highness."

"Then let's go."

They moved quickly through the ruins, the Nanny keeping pace despite her age. Through the ward stones—Ethel used his second enchanted coin, the runes flaring and dying. Into the tunnels, following the path Ethel had memorized.

Lisa's head rested against Ethel's shoulder, the atlas still clutched to her chest. She didn't make a sound. Didn't ask questions. Just held on with her skeletal fingers and stared at the dark tunnel walls with those empty, haunting eyes.

"You're very quiet," Ethel whispered to Lisa as they walked.

"Talking is not necessary," Lisa replied, her voice that same flat monotone. "Nanny says unnecessary noise causes mistakes."

They've trained her to be silent. To minimize her existence. To be as close to not existing as possible while still breathing.

What kind of monster does that to a child?

But they knew the answer, the kind of monster who sees people as tools. As resources to be used and discarded.

They emerged at the pre-arranged point in the outer gardens where a servant's cart waited, loaded with linens and supplies—perfect cover. Ethel had paid the driver a small fortune to be there and ask no questions.

He settled Lisa in the cart, covering her with clean sheets. The Nanny climbed in beside her, cradling the girl protectively.

"Where are we going?" Lisa asked, her voice muffled by the fabric.

"Somewhere safe," Ethel promised, though his heart was breaking. "Somewhere you won't be forgotten anymore."

As the cart rolled away toward the Valeria estate.

Lysander spoke. "Whatever we find in that wing—whatever the Emperor wants from her—we need to be prepared."

"I know," Ethel said.

Behind them, the Ghost Palace stood empty, its secrets carried away in the arms of a fourteen-year-old prince who'd just declared war on his father without realizing it.

But Lysander realized it.

And he was already planning for the battles to come.

Taking the Princess was a secretive act executed with precision. Because of years of deliberate neglect, nobody in the palace had yet noticed she was missing. The Emperor's careful erasure of her existence had, ironically, made her rescue invisible.

Temporarily, the Princess resided at the Valeria estate—the home of Ethel's most trusted aide. The Valeria family's loyalty belonged to the Crown Prince alone, a devotion rooted in blood debt to his late mother.

The Empress had been a woman of quiet strength who withered under impossible pressures. The Emperor's relentless demand for an heir, her advancing age, the constant suppression of her paternal family to prevent them from gaining influence—all of it had crushed her slowly. The nobility's mocking whispers about her "barrenness" had been the final torture. Her health had declined catastrophically under the weight of stress and worry for her endangered family.

Then, by some stroke of desperate luck, she had conceived at an age most considered impossible. She had given birth to Ethel, her miracle son, and lived to raise him for eight precious years before her weakened body finally gave out.

Those eight years—those irreplaceable eight years—had been filled with love. Real love. The kind Ethel would spend the rest of his life trying to find again.

But before the Empress died, something significant had happened. She had met Eleanor—Elizabeth's mother. Two women in pitiful positions had bonded over their shared suffering under the Emperor's cruelty. The Empress had known that the Emperor was forcing himself on Eleanor, and she had sighed often about it in Ethel's presence.

The Emperor was not a lustful man by nature—his desperation to have a child with Eleanor meant there was something he wanted. Something his greedy nature craved. The Empress had deduced that something was deeply suspicious about the entire situation.

She had once mentioned to her young son, during one of their quiet afternoons in her garden, "Ethel, if ever there comes a day when you have younger siblings, treat them well. Your father... he will not. I know him too well." She had looked so sad when she said it, her eyes distant.

In her private diary—the one Ethel had hidden away after her death—she had written about her conversations with Eleanor. The two women had shared their fears and hopes during stolen moments when the Emperor was occupied elsewhere. Eleanor had told her that if she ever had a child, she wanted to name a daughter Elizabeth Marionette, and a son Luis Frank.

Such beautiful names, the Empress had written. I pray that if Eleanor's child is born, they will know love, even if their father cannot give it to them.

This was why Ethel had been curious about the Princess even before he'd discovered the budget discrepancies. His mother's words had planted a seed—if he had a sibling, they would need protection from their father. They would need someone to care.

After the Empress's death when Ethel was eight, her paternal family became more cautious, more invisible. The Empress's family had once been a powerful force in the kingdom—influential enough that the Emperor had feared their reach, had worked tirelessly to suppress them, to prevent them from gaining more power. They were one of the oldest noble houses, with connections that spanned generations and territories.

The Emperor's constant pressure on the Empress had been partly to keep her family in check, to ensure they never became a threat to his absolute rule.

With their protector gone, the Empress's family withdrew from court politics entirely, becoming shadows of their former influence. But their loyalty remained absolute. They had loved the Empress, and now they loved her son. They became part of Ethel's faction, standing behind him in the shadows, waiting for the day he would need them.

The Valeria family, released from their duty to the Empress, redirected their absolute loyalty to the now-unprotected Crown Prince trapped in a cold palace. The connection between the Empress's family and the Valeria family ran deep—both had been saved by the Empress at different times, both owed her everything, and both now served her son.

The Emperor, surprisingly, allowed the Valeria connection. Perhaps he looked down on them and decided they posed no threat. Perhaps he believed that one minor noble house's affection for his son was harmless.

He was catastrophically wrong.

What nobody knew—not even Lysander until recently—was that the Valeria family operated an Information Guild. A vast network of spies, informants, and intelligence brokers that gathered secrets the Emperor himself couldn't access. This was why the Empress had maintained her position for so long despite the mockery and pressure. The Valeria family had protected her from the shadows. They had gathered information, blackmailed enemies, eliminated threats—all without the Emperor ever knowing the true scope of their operations.

The Prince's birth had been her one moment of triumph, though also a moment of vulnerability when her health was at its weakest.

Now, they would not fail her son.

And they had resources even Ethel didn't know about yet. Centuries of accumulated artifacts, tools, and relics—some so ancient that their magic couldn't be replicated in the modern age. Items that only Valeria blood could activate, making them both priceless and useless to anyone else.

These tools were how the Valeria family had gathered information for generations. How they'd survived when other houses had fallen. How they'd protected the Empress, and now her son.