Vincent’s POV
The palace never truly rested. Even at dusk, the halls carried faint footsteps, the murmur of servants, the scrape of chairs in distant rooms. Yet inside my study, the atmosphere felt wrong—like something was missing.
I set aside the ledger and opened the small box at the corner of my desk. Inside lay a single pale-blue bead, round and smooth as sea glass. Its twin was gone.
For a moment I just stared at it. The emptiness beside it pressed harder than any decree or battlefield wound. That bead had once been part of a promise—a quiet one whispered between waves and wind.
I remembered the beach that day. The sound of the sea wrapping around us, the breeze pulling at her hair. Adeline had been barefoot, her gown brushing against her ankles, her laughter caught in the air lik
