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1863 Words
ELARA'S
Unfortunately for me...
My father didn’t really "invite" people to things. He issued commands that felt like invisible nooses tightening around your neck until you complied. So, despite my internal vow to ignore the "survivor" and focus on my own mounting insanity regarding Julian, I found myself sitting at the massive obsidian council table, trying not to look like I wanted to jump out of my own skin.
"Sit down, Elara, and try to look like you have a spine," my father, the General, barked without even looking up from his maps.
He was a man built out of granite and bad intentions. He didn't have a "dad" mode; he had "Conqueror" and "Slightly Annoyed Conqueror." Today, he was definitely the latter. He was wearing his full Republic regalia, all sharp edges and medals that probably represented the thousands of people he’d sent to the gallows.
I took my seat, smoothing the skirts of a much more modest dress—though I could still feel the phantom heat of Julian’s hands on my waist from the library. Speaking of the devil, Julian was standing directly behind my father’s chair. He was back in his formal uniform, the black and silver fabric buttoned all the way to his chin.
He looked like a statue. A very large, very angry statue that was currently pretending I didn't exist.
The council chamber was packed with men who all smelled like expensive cigars and ancient grudges. Captain Vane was there, of course, leaning against the wall and giving me a look that made me want to take a bath in bleach. He looked smug, probably because he thought he was about to watch a show.
"Bring him in," my father commanded, his voice echoing off the vaulted ceiling.
The heavy doors groaned open, and two guards dragged in a man who looked like he’d been through a meat grinder. He was skeletal, his skin the color of wet parchment, and he was missing at least three fingers on his left hand. He wore the tattered, blood-stained remains of the old Royal Guard—the deep crimson and gold that my father had made illegal to even own ten years ago.
"Name and rank," my father said, his voice dropping into that low, dangerous rumble that usually preceded an execution.
The man wheezed, a wet, rattling sound that filled the room. "Silas... Silas Thorne. Captain of the Third Aegis. Protector of the... the Prince."
A collective breath was held in the room. The "Prince." The ghost that had been haunting my father’s nightmares for a decade. The man my father had hunted through every village, every forest, and every cellar in the Republic.
I looked at Julian. I couldn't help it. His jaw was so tight I thought his teeth might actually shatter. His eyes were fixed on the prisoner, and for a split second, I saw something in them that wasn't hatred. It was grief. Pure, agonizing grief.
"The Prince is dead," my father snapped, leaning forward until his shadow swallowed the prisoner. "We saw the palace burn. We saw the bodies. You’re lying to save your pathetic neck."
Silas let out a jagged laugh that turned into a coughing fit, spitting blood onto the pristine obsidian floor. "The bodies were... decoys, General. You were so eager to claim victory, you didn't even check the teeth. He’s alive. He’s grown. And he’s coming for everything you stole."
"Where is he?" my father hissed, his hand reaching for the dagger at his belt.
Silas looked up, his milky eyes scanning the room until they landed on Julian. I felt my heart stop. It literally stopped. I waited for the finger to point. I waited for the shout of treason. But Silas just smiled, a bloody, terrifying grin.
"He’s already inside your walls, General," Silas whispered. "He’s been watching you sleep. He’s been eating your bread. And when the time is right, he will tear your Republic apart from the inside out."
The room erupted. My father was screaming for the interrogators, Vane was shouting about border security, and the council members were arguing like hens in a coop. It was chaos. Beautiful, distracting chaos.
"Julian," my father barked over the noise.
Julian stepped forward, his boots clicking sharply. "Yes, General?"
"Take this dog to the black cells. Stay there until the interrogators arrive. If he dies before I get a name, your head will be the one on the block. Do you understand?"
"Perfectly," Julian replied.
He grabbed Silas by the scruff of his neck, hauling the skeletal man up with a brute strength that made my stomach do that annoying little flip again. As he turned to leave, Julian’s eyes met mine for a fraction of a second. There was no "brat" sneer now. There was a warning. A cold, stark command to stay away.
Fat chance, Princey, I thought, my mind already racing.
As my father began a long-winded rant about executing everyone with a Royalist tattoo, I slipped out the side door. No one noticed. They were too busy debating which gallows to use.
I didn't head back to my room. I didn't head to the gardens. I headed toward the North Barracks—the elite wing where the personal guards lived. It was a place for men who lived for the blade, a place where the "Golden Daughter" had absolutely no business being.
The walk was long, taking me through the winding, shadowed corridors of the lower fortress. The air here was different—less incense and perfume, more wet stone and woodsmoke. As I reached the servant’s entrance to the barracks, I pulled my hood low. The guards were all scurrying toward the council chambers or the armory, distracted by the news of the survivor.
I slipped inside.
The North Barracks were surprisingly quiet. It smelled of leather, whetstones, and that specific, cedar-and-steel scent that I’d come to associate with Julian. I felt like an intruder in a lion’s den, every shadow looking like a guard ready to arrest me.
I found his door at the end of a long, dimly lit corridor. It was plain, no different from the others, but my hand trembled as I reached for the handle. Aunt Kiki had said he’d left it unlocked—a mistake my father’s most disciplined hound never made. Was he so distracted by Silas that he forgot? Or was he so arrogant he thought no one would dare enter his lair?
The door creaked open.
I slipped inside and shut it behind me, my back hitting the wood as I took a jagged breath.
The room was... small. Much smaller than I expected for a man of his importance. It was Spartan, almost monastic. A narrow bed with charcoal-grey linens, a single wooden chair, and a heavy iron-bound trunk at the foot of the bed. There were no decorations. No tokens of a life before the Republic. It was the room of a man who owned nothing but his secrets.
I walked toward the bed, my heart thudding so loudly I was sure the guards in the hallway could hear it. I sat down on the edge of the mattress, the springs groaning under my weight. The scent of him was everywhere here—heavy, intoxicating, and suffocatingly male. It was the smell of the training courtyard, but concentrated, stripped of the dust and the sun.
I looked down at the trunk. It was locked, but the mechanism was old. I pulled a small, silver hair-pin from my braids—a trick Kiki had taught me when I was twelve and bored. After a few tense seconds of fumbling, the lock clicked.
I lifted the lid.
Inside were his uniforms, neatly folded. But beneath the black silk of his guard’s tunic, there was something wrapped in a piece of moth-eaten velvet.
I pulled it out. My fingers brushed against a heavy, cold object. I unwrapped the velvet, and my breath hitched in my throat.
It was a signet ring. Gold, encrusted with a sapphire the color of a winter sky, and stamped with the crest of the fallen monarchy—the Crown of Thorns.
My blood turned to ice. He wasn't just a survivor. He wasn't just a guard. He was the "Ghost Prince." The man my father had been hunting for ten years was sleeping ten doors down from my bedroom. He was the man who had pinned me against the library shelves, the man who had looked at me with a hunger that could burn a city to the ground.
And then I saw it. Tucked into the corner of the velvet was something else.
A ribbon. A small, frayed piece of gold silk.
I stared at it, my brain struggling to make sense of why it looked so familiar. And then it hit me. It was from the dress I’d worn to my sixteenth birthday gala—the night Julian had been assigned to my detail. I’d snagged it on a rosebush in the garden, and I thought I’d lost it.
He’d kept it. For years, the man who claimed to want to see my world burn had been keeping a piece of me hidden in his most private possession.
A strange, dizzying heat began to pulse through me. It wasn't fear anymore. It was a dark, reckless validation. He wanted me. He hated me, he wanted to kill my father, but he wanted me so badly he’d stolen a piece of my trash to keep in his secret box.
I looked at the narrow bed, then at the ring in my hand. The weight of the secret was staggering. I should go to my father. I should hand him this ring and watch Julian be dragged to the gallows.
But as I looked at the gold ribbon, I felt the dampness between my legs return, more insistent than ever. The thought of him—the Prince of Thorns—watching me from the shadows for years, keeping my secrets while I tried to uncover his, made my head spin.
I stood up, my legs feeling like lead. I didn't want to leave. I wanted to wait for him. I wanted to see his face when he realized I knew.
I looked at the bed again. The pillow was firm, looking like it had been molded by the weight of his head. I felt drawn to it, a magnetic pull I couldn't resist. I sat back down and reached my hand under the pillow, expecting to find a dagger or perhaps more secrets.
My fingers brushed against something cold. Something that felt... metallic and strange.
I pulled it out slowly, my heart stopping as I realized what it was. It wasn't a weapon. It was something else entirely—something that made the air in the room feel ten times heavier... hotter.
I stared at the object in my hand, my brain failing to process why Julian—the cold, hateful, dominant guard—would have this hidden where he laid his head every night.
"Oh, you absolute bastard," I whispered, a smile finally tugging at my lips.
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