The news spread like wildfire.
"Camilla Vexley disgraced."
"Duke Vale silenced."
"A ghost in gray walks the court."
And when it reached the palace gates, it didn't stop there.
It reached him.
Prince Lucien Everhart stood by the window of his private study, the parchment in his hand trembling slightly. The royal seal had been broken. The words scrawled in haste.
She's alive.
He didn't move.
Not for a moment.
The fire crackled quietly behind him, but the room felt cold.
"It's a mistake," he said aloud. "It has to be."
But then he saw the name again-Ashthorn-and he remembered.
He remembered her laugh.
Her hands, always ink-stained.
The way she had trusted him even when she shouldn't have.
He remembered the way she screamed when the guards dragged her away.
"I didn't know," he whispered. "I didn't know what they'd planned."
But that was a lie. He had known.
He'd just looked away.
Lucien crushed the letter in his fist.
Across the room, his advisor shifted nervously. "Your Highness… what should we do?"
Lucien turned, his eyes dark and unreadable.
"We find her."
"To silence her?"
Lucien's jaw tightened.
"No," he said. "To stop her from becoming something worse than what we made her."
Meanwhile…
Evelyne stood at her brother's side, watching the court squirm from the shadows. Rumors were spreading faster than fire, and the nobles were already choosing sides.
"He knows now," Julian murmured. "The prince."
Evelyne didn't flinch. "Good."
"Do you want him to come?"
She looked at her brother kind, loyal, once too blind to see her fall.
"I want him to see what he lost."
Julian hesitated. "And if he begs for forgiveness?"
Evelyne's eyes darkened.
"Then I'll give him something to truly regret."
Because this time, when the prince came chasing ghosts…
He wouldn't find the girl he once loved.
He'd find the woman he created.
And she wasn't here for forgiveness.
She was here for war.