The Queen They Erased

The dead woman had my face. I knew that before I saw the rest of her. Before I noticed the blood. Before I noticed the crown lying beside her hand. Before I realized the date carved into the stone belonged to a year I had been alive. I stopped halfway down the forgotten staircase. My candle trembled. So did my hand. For several seconds, I simply stared. The woman beneath the dust was young. Twenty, perhaps. Twenty-five at most. Her dark hair had been spread around her head like a black halo, though time had turned much of it silver at the edges. Her gown was almost completely rotted away, but fragments of gold embroidery remained along the sleeves. Royal embroidery. My stomach tightened. I lifted the candle higher. The dead woman's face emerged from the darkness. My face. Not similar. Not close. Mine. The same narrow jaw. The same scar beneath the left eyebrow. The same small crescent-shaped birthmark at the base of the throat. I touched my own throat. My breath caught. "No." The word disappeared into the underground chamber. I stepped closer. There was a plaque beneath the body. Most of the inscription had been damaged, but I could still read the first line. HERE LIES -- The rest had been deliberately scratched away. Someone had tried to destroy the name. Not by accident. Not by age. The stone around the missing letters was gouged deeply enough that whoever had done it had wanted the name gone. I crouched. My candlelight fell across the date. 17th Day of Winter, Year 418. My pulse stopped. Year 418. I knew that year. Everyone in Avarra did. It was the year of the Ashen War. The year the northern kingdoms fell. The year the royal archives burned. The year King Aldren Vale declared that the ancient bloodline of Avarra had ended. The year I was born. I stared at the date again. Then at the woman's face. "No." I backed away. My heel struck something metallic. The sound rang through the chamber. I looked down. A crown. It was lying half-buried beneath the woman's fingers. Not a ceremonial crown. Not one of the modern crowns kept inside the royal treasury. This one was older. Much older. Its gold had darkened almost to bronze, and five narrow stones were set into the band. One for each ancient province. I had seen it once. In a painting. A painting that had been removed from the palace gallery three years ago. A painting of the first queen of Avarra. Queen Seraphine. My name. I reached toward the crown. A voice behind me said, "Don't." I froze. The candle flame bent sharply. I didn't turn around. I knew that voice. Caelan. "How long have you been standing there?" "Long enough." His voice was quiet. Too quiet. I closed my fingers around the candle. "Did you follow me?" "Yes." "Why?" No answer. I turned. Caelan Thorne stood at the bottom of the staircase. His black coat was wet from the rain above. A sword hung at his hip, though he had left one hand resting away from the hilt. His gray eyes were fixed on the body. Not on me. Not on the crown. On the dead woman. For the first time since I had known him, Caelan looked afraid. It lasted less than a heartbeat. Then it vanished. He descended the remaining steps. "Come away from it." I stood. "You knew this room existed." "No." "You're lying." His gaze snapped to mine. There was something about the way he looked at me that made my skin prickle. Not anger. Recognition. As if he were seeing someone else standing where I stood. "Caelan." "Seraphine." "Who is she?" He didn't answer. I took another step toward him. "Who is she?" "You shouldn't have come here." "I found a body beneath the eastern archive." "You weren't supposed to find the eastern archive." "That isn't an answer." "No." His jaw tightened. "It isn't." I glanced at the corpse. "She has my face." Caelan's silence answered more than words could. My chest tightened. "You knew." "No." "You knew." "I knew there was a sealed chamber beneath the archive." "You knew about her." "I knew there were records the crown had ordered destroyed." "Records?" I laughed once. There was nothing amused in it. "Do you understand what I just found?" "Yes." "Then tell me." He looked at the body. "Not here." I stared at him. "You expect me to leave?" "I expect you to survive." The words were so quietly spoken that they frightened me more than if he had shouted. I turned back toward the corpse. "Who killed her?" "I don't know." "How long has she been here?" "I don't know." "Why does she have my face?" He said nothing. "Caelan." His eyes met mine. "I don't know." I believed him. That was the problem. He wasn't hiding ignorance. He was hiding fear. I looked down again. The dead woman's hand was curled around something. A small silver object. I knelt. Caelan moved immediately. "Don't touch it." "You said that about the crown." "And I'm saying it again." "Why?" "Because everything buried beneath this palace was buried for a reason." I looked at the object. A key. Old. Blackened silver. Its head was shaped like the same five-pointed symbol carved into the crown. I reached for it. Caelan caught my wrist. His fingers closed around me. Warm. Firm. For one impossible second, neither of us moved. His expression changed. Not much. But enough. His eyes dropped to where he was holding me. Then back to my face. "Let go." He did. Immediately. I pulled my hand against my chest. "You're afraid of that key." "I'm afraid of what it opens." "Then we're going to find out." "No." I stared at him. "No?" "You're going upstairs." "You're giving me orders now?" "I'm asking you." "You don't ask." Something almost like a smile touched his mouth. It disappeared quickly. "Then consider this a request." I shook my head. "You know something." "Yes." "What?" "I know that seven years ago, someone erased an entire year from the royal archives." My heartbeat stumbled. "Why?" "I don't know." "Who?" "I don't know." "Then what do you know?" He looked at the dead woman. "I know the year wasn't erased from the archives." His voice dropped. "It was erased from people." The candle flame flickered. I felt cold. "What does that mean?" "It means there are things you remember that never happened." My mouth went dry. "And things you don't remember that did." Silence. Somewhere above us, thunder rolled across the palace. I looked at the corpse again. Something was wrong. Something I hadn't noticed before. The woman's left hand was bare. Her right hand wasn't. A ring. Black metal. Five stones. I stepped closer. The same crest. My fingers went numb. I knew that ring. Not because I had seen it. Because I had worn it. In a dream. A dream I had been having since childhood. Always the same. Snow. A burning palace. Someone screaming my name. A man's hand pulling me through smoke. And a ring on my finger. I had always assumed it was a dream. Now the ring was lying on a dead woman's hand. Caelan saw my expression. "What?" I couldn't answer. He stepped toward me. "Seraphine." "I've seen it." His face changed. "Where?" "In my dreams." He went completely still. "Tell me." "I don't remember." "You must." "I said I don't remember." He looked away. For the first time, I noticed a thin scar crossing his palm. An old one. A crescent-shaped burn. I had seen that scar before too. In the dreams. The man's hand. The hand pulling me through the fire. My breath caught. I looked at him. "Caelan." He didn't respond. "You were there." His eyes returned to mine. "In what?" "The dream." His expression hardened. "You don't know what you're saying." "You were there." "Seraphine." "You were the one pulling me through the fire." He stepped backward. Only one step. But I saw it. Fear. Real fear. "You need to forget this room." "I can't." "You need to." "Why?" "Because if someone discovers you've been here—" "Who?" He stopped. I waited. He looked toward the staircase. Then toward the corpse. Then back at me. "Everyone." The word barely escaped him. I frowned. "Everyone who?" "Everyone who benefits from you believing your life began when you were told it did." The candle went out. Darkness swallowed us. I heard Caelan draw his sword. "Stay behind me." "What happened?" "Someone opened the upper door." My heart began pounding. Footsteps sounded above. Slow. Measured. One. Two. Three. Someone was descending the stairs. Caelan's sword gleamed faintly in the darkness. "How many?" "One." "Can we get past them?" "No." "Then who is it?" He didn't answer. The footsteps stopped. A voice drifted down the staircase. Female. Soft. Familiar. "Seraphine?" My blood turned cold. Mira. My closest friend. Caelan's grip tightened around his sword. "Don't answer." "But that's Mira." "I know." The voice called again. "Seraphine, are you down there?" I took one step toward the stairs. Caelan caught my arm. "Don't." Then I heard something beneath Mira's voice. Something wrong. A second voice. Whispering from the darkness behind us. Seraphine. I turned. The dead woman's eyes were open. I screamed. The corpse moved. Not much. Just enough for its fingers to curl around the black-silver ring. Then her lips parted. And in a voice that sounded exactly like mine, she whispered: "You promised you would come back." Caelan went pale. The footsteps above began running. Someone shouted. The chamber doors slammed open. Light flooded the room. And every bell in the palace began to ring. Not once. Not twice. Seven times. Caelan stared at me. I stared at the dead woman. Then the ancient crown beside her began to glow. And I heard the voice inside my head for the first time. You were never the queen they remembered. A pause. Then-- You were the queen they erased.