"I can't watch this," I choked out.
Kenneth nodded, and the scene dissolved, returning us to the grand hall, now empty of all but us.
"You need to know who you are," he said. "Who you really are Marabelle, or Bell as I use to call you.”
"Bell," I repeated, the childhood nickname unlocking something deep inside me. Flashes of memory—a brother's laugh, piggyback rides through palace corridors, whispered secrets under blanket forts—cascaded through my mind. "You used to sneak me sweets from the kitchen when Mother said I'd had enough."
Kenneth's smile was bittersweet. "You remember."
"Not everything," I admitted. "Just... pieces."
"That's a start." He moved to the throne, his ghostly hand hovering over its arm. "This should have been mine, and after me, yours if I had no children. Now i
