The Prince’s Secret Door
928 Words
The palace had rules.
Don’t touch the black roses—they bite.
Don’t swim in the moonlit pools—they whisper back.
And never, ever open a door that isn’t opened for you.
So, naturally, I opened the first one I found.
In my defense, it was already cracked open. Just a sliver. Just enough to show the edge of candlelight and a whisper of something wrong in the air. Something old. Cold. Sacred.
It called to me like a heartbeat I didn’t know was mine.
I waited until Kael was gone—called to some war council or ritual sacrifice or demon brunch, who knows—and I slipped out of my suite, past two distracted guards, barefoot again because heels in Hell? Nah.
The door was near the west wing, past a hallway lined in silver-veined mirrors that reflected everything except your face. I hated them.
The door itself was blackened iron, twisted into vines and thorns. It hummed when I touched it. Like it knew me.
Like it remembered me.
I pushed it open.
The air shifted.
Cold. Sharp. Ancient.
Inside was a library—but not like the others I’d seen in the palace. This one was circular, candlelit, and stacked with books bound in skin and blood-inked scrolls. The walls whispered in languages I didn’t understand.
And in the center of it all… was a pedestal.
One scroll lay open.
Glowing faintly red.
Like it was waiting for someone.
I stepped closer, every instinct screaming don’t. But something deeper whispered, keep going.
I read the top line.
“The Bride of Ash and Ruin shall come in flame…”
I froze.
“…carrying the blood of worlds, born once more by mortal hand.”
My heart stuttered.
“She will either break the Prince’s chains… or forge them into war.”
Chains?
I backed away.
Tripped on the hem of my robe.
And fell hard against a second pedestal—knocking over a sealed box. It hit the floor with a dull thud, cracked open, and spilled a handful of black stones across the floor.
Each one pulsed like a heartbeat.
Images flashed behind my eyes—memories that weren’t mine. Fire. A battlefield. A woman cloaked in ash, screaming the Prince’s name as she crumbled to dust.
I gasped. Stumbled back.
The air around me howled.
And then—
A hand caught my arm.
Kael.
He appeared in front of me, eyes glowing, body tense with rage and something close to… fear?
“What are you doing here?” he growled, voice rougher than I’d ever heard it.
“I—I didn’t know—”
“This place is forbidden.”
“You don’t say.”
His jaw clenched. “You could have awakened something.”
“Maybe something needed to be awakened!”
He stepped closer. “You don’t understand what you’re doing.”
“Then explain it,” I snapped. “Because I just read a scroll that basically said I’m the apocalypse or your savior, and you’ve been walking around here like I’m just a mouthy plus-one.”
Silence.
Then—
“You weren’t supposed to find this,” he said quietly.
“Why? Because it’s dangerous? Or because it tells the truth?”
He didn’t answer.
I moved past him, back toward the pedestal.
“Tell me what it means.”
Kael grabbed my wrist.
I twisted, slammed my elbow into his ribs, and yanked away.
We stared at each other—breathing hard, inches apart.
“You think you’re the only one with scars?” I whispered. “The only one with curses?”
His expression broke.
Just for a second.
Then he stepped back, shoulders heavy.
“You were her,” he said. “In another life.”
“Her who?”
“My bride,” he said softly. “The first one. The only one I ever loved.”
My heart lurched.
“She died because of me. Because I chose war. I brought down kingdoms for her—then watched her burn.”
He looked at me.
And there it was.
The grief.
The guilt.
The truth.
“I recognized you the second I saw you in that bar,” he admitted. “Even though you wore a different face. Even though your fire had changed. It was still you.”
I couldn’t speak.
I didn’t know how.
He turned away.
“You weren’t supposed to remember,” he said. “I wanted to protect you from this. But fate… fate doesn’t forget.”
I looked down at the scroll again.
Chains.
War.
Fire.
“What happens now?” I asked.
He faced me.
“Now?” he said. “Now the court will try to kill you. The prophecy will hunt you. And if you fall in love with me again…”
He stepped forward.
Brushed a thumb across my cheek.
“…you’ll die.”
⸻
I didn’t sleep that night.
I sat by the window, robe wrapped tight around me, watching the bleeding stars pulse in the sky.
The past was clawing its way back.
Kael was hiding more than he said.
And something inside me was changing.
I could feel it—in the way my skin sparked, in the way the shadows whispered when I walked past, in the way I wanted to both kill and kiss the man who said I once died for him.
This place wasn’t just a palace.
It was a cage.
A memory.
A battlefield waiting to happen.
And me?
I was the match.
- Writer
