Chapter 133

Lila

The letter was waiting for me before I’d even sat down. It lay neatly beside my tea, sealed in pale wax with the Ashford crest pressed deep into its face.

For a moment, I thought I’d imagined it. I blinked, hoping it might disappear—but the paper stayed. Unmoving. Heavy with expectation.

I didn’t reach for it. Not right away. My fingers hovered instead over the porcelain cup, letting the steam curl up to kiss my skin, trying to warm the places that still felt cold from last night.

Damon hadn’t said anything about the tonic. About Ella. About me.

His silence wrapped around the bed like a second blanket. And though his arms had been careful, his heartbeat steady, the quiet had tasted like guilt.

Now this.

I broke the seal and unfolded the letter with slow, deliberate hands. The script was familiar. Elegant. My mother’s.

Lila, news reaches even the outer borders. I had hoped the stories were exaggerated, but it seems they are not.

I stopped. My eyes scanned ahead—skipping the usual pleasantries, if there were any.

I fear you’ve become little more than a placeholder for the King’s grief. It pains me to say this, but I see no honor in what’s unfolding. Come home before you lose more than just your name.

That was it. No warm wishes. No questions. No signature. Just judgment on fine parchment.

The page crinkled as I folded it back along the original seam. Just bent. Like me.

I stared at the hearth, wondering if I had the strength to toss it into the fire. Let the flame eat what I couldn’t.

But something stopped me.

Instead, I tucked it into the drawer beside my journal, pressing it flat beneath older pages filled with hope and longing.

My mother hadn’t shouted. She hadn’t pleaded. She hadn’t asked if I was safe, or scared, or happy.

Just offered shame a stern warning of motherly love an concern.

The familiar ache bloomed in my chest—not fresh, but old. Worn-in like boots you never quite grow out of.

That knowing curl of emptiness that always followed her disapproval. The same pain I used to swallow as a girl, standing too tall, speaking too loud, always trying to be enough.

Ruby stirred faintly inside me, the movement sluggish, uneasy. A low sound vibrated through me—not quite a growl.

I pressed a hand to my ribs. “I know,” I whispered. “It still hurts.”

The tea had gone cold. I pushed it aside, stood slowly, and moved toward the window. Outside, the world continued untouched—servants walking the path, sunlight slipping through the garden leaves, trembling in the breeze.

I could disappear into it. Just walk and walk until the palace was nothing but stone behind me.

But I stayed. Because leaving wouldn’t erase the letter. And staying didn’t mean I agreed with it. I was still here. And maybe that had to be enough for now.

I didn’t go to breakfast. I couldn’t bear the stares today—not from the guards, not from the nobles, and certainly not from Damon.

The garden was too bright, so I stayed inside, curled in the window alcove of the library’s west wing, where the sunlight came filtered through stained glass. Reds and blues and golds painted my bare arms like a mosaic—like the light was trying to reassemble me from the outside in.

The letter was folded on my lap, creased and worn from too many rereads. My mother’s handwriting, once so cherished, now looked like a stranger’s. Sharp strokes, deliberate punctuation, a chill between each line.

My fingers traced the edge of the paper. I shouldn’t have brought it with me, but leaving it behind in my room had felt like turning my back on a wound before it scabbed.

“Come home.” Not "I miss you." Not "Are you alright?" Just—come home, like a command, not a request.

I tilted my head against the window. Outside, the greenhouse shimmered in the morning light. I could almost see the bench where Damon once found me, arms around me.

I closed my eyes.

I hadn’t told him about the letter. Not because I was hiding it, but because I didn’t know what to say. What could I say? That my mother thought I was nothing more than a ghost in someone else's dress?

That she believed the whispers? That part of me did, too.

Ruby stirred faintly in the back of my mind, her presence weak but flickering. She just let me feel her unease—the quiet grief we both shared.

I pressed my hand flat against the glass.

Leaving wouldn’t fix it. But staying—staying felt like balancing on the blade of a knife.

I could feel the sharp edge every time I walked the hall, every time a noble’s whisper trailed behind me like a shadow. Every time I looked at Damon and wondered if my mother was right.

What if he had chosen me out of grief?

What if Asher hadn’t been cruel when he said I was lucky—just honest?

What if I wasn’t strong enough to be anything but temporary?

Footsteps pulled me from my mental spiral. I tensed but whoever it was must have sensed my silence wasn’t an invitation, because a moment later, the footsteps retreated.

I let out a slow breath and rested my forehead against the cool windowpane. Maybe I should go. Just for a day. Just long enough to remind myself I had a past that wasn’t all court and venom and trials and… whatever life had become.

Just long enough to see my mother. To ask her what she really thought. How she was really doing.

I wasn’t sure if the ache in my chest was from longing or the knowledge that I might not like the answers.

The breeze shifted outside, rustling the trees. The colors from the stained glass shifted too, blue fading to gold across my knees.

I folded the letter once more and tucked it into the inside pocket of my jacket.

I didn’t have a plan. But I needed to breathe.

And maybe that meant going back to the one place I’d spent so long trying to escape.

Maybe home wasn’t safety. But maybe it was the place where I could finally stop pretending I didn’t need it.

I stood slowly, pressing my palms against the windowsill to steady myself. My knees protested, stiff from sitting too long, but I didn’t sit back down.

Instead, I began to move—restless, slow steps across the library floor, my fingers trailing over the spines of ancient volumes as if the names etched into them might offer something—perspective, clarity, a distraction.

One book wobbled under my hand. I caught it before it fell, hugging it to my chest like it might steady the erratic beat of my heart. I didn’t even look at the title.

On impulse, I walked it over to the nearest table, cracked it open, and stared at the page without reading. The words didn’t land. They blurred at the edges, a swirl of ink and nothing.

I pushed the book away and curled my arms around myself instead.

Then I moved again—back to the shelves, to the hearth, to the window. A slow orbit. Like if I stopped, something inside me would splinter.

Eventually, I returned to the alcove. But instead of curling back up, I pulled the window open just a crack. Let the wind hit my face. Cold. Biting.

And I breathed.