Page 2 of Revert (The Royal Chronicles #4)

His voice was disturbingly calm as he slowly advanced, his steps graceful leonine. “Throughout our courtship I came to know you as an intelligent and fiercely capable woman. It’s truly a shame it had to end this way—you would have made an excellent queen.”

His gaze flicked to the door behind me I yearned to breach.

“What you failed to understand is that even you are not immune to the consequences of such a dangerous endeavor. I’m admittedly impressed with what you managed to uncover, but I cannot allow you to go any farther down this path, not when that knowledge threatens the kingdom.

Though I noticed the evidence of your disloyalty, I didn’t want to believe it.

But you left me no choice but to condemn you the moment you stepped willingly into my trap. ”

“As is typical for the Thorndale throne,” I said bitterly. “Threats supersede the value of a life, even that of your future wife.” I knew no weapon of words could spare me, but my pride refused to allow me to go down without a fight.

His expression didn’t flicker. “Are you truly so surprised? You’ve spent long enough at court to understand how Thorndale works, the throne that demands loyalty. And I will do whatever is required to protect our secrets.”

I hadn’t realized I was shaking my head until he gave a short, humorless laugh, an uncharacteristic sound that chilled me more than his silence ever had.

“Surely you’re too sensible to still be in denial.”

Pleas burned my lips, but I forced them back. Uttering them was pointless—mercy didn’t exist in Thorndale, especially not for traitors. “Yet my failure isn’t an option,” I managed in a shaky whisper.

He advanced another step, eyes narrowing. “It’s the only option left to you. After years spent within these walls, you’re still naive enough to hope for a different outcome? Did you truly think you could outwit the throne of Thorndale?”

His words shattered the lies I had long used to survive, each one unraveling in my mind until I was forced to confront the truth. But though I had failed, I refused to cower in this final moment. Gathering what little courage I had left, I lifted my chin and met his gaze.

“Desperation made it impossible not to at least try.”

He cocked a brow, almost mockingly in a rare show of emotion, as if now that the end was near, he no longer felt the need for masks. “I didn’t realize your trying would result in so little.”

If words could kill, his would have been fatal; even his cold indifference had never cut so deep. But his insult merely echoed the ache of inadequacy and utter helplessness I had fought so long to ignore, made all the more unbearable when there would be no second chance.

I refused to play his game. I wouldn’t dignify his cruelty with silence, nor allow him to have the final word.

Even in defeat, I would fight. “You mock me for trying,” I said, voice low but steady.

“But trying was all I ever had. Even if it’s pointless, I will give all that I have until the bitter end. ”

Rather than appearing angry, his gaze held mine, as if searching for something buried beneath the fear and defiance. Then, unexpectedly, he gave a slight nod. “That spark I glimpsed is brighter than I thought. Come what may, ensure that you kindle it.”

The encouragement struck like a cruel joke when my remaining life could be measured in a minute, perhaps less.

I didn’t want to spend my final moments allowing him to toy with me for his own amusement.

I had expended all my strength fighting back until I had nothing left, leaving me helpless in the face of death—one far too handsome for such a loathsome role.

He closed the last of the distance separating us, leaving me nowhere left to run. Resistance was futile; I had seen his expert swordsmanship—deadly, precise, and unbeatable—enough to know that this was one fight I couldn’t win. Even if I managed to escape, he would just chase me.

I was trapped.

Despite being thoroughly cornered, instinct caused me to press my back against the wall.

I tried to avoid looking at the sword he constantly kept strapped to his waist, the instrument of my demise, but my gaze was inadvertently drawn to it anyway.

The ruby gems lining the hilt caught in the torchlight, shimmering like fresh blood.

The sight constricted my chest, my heart stuttering violently with its final pulses.

He drew the blade slowly, almost leisurely, as if he had all the time in the world to prolong my punishment…before everything ended forever. Though terror rooted me in place, I managed to lift my chin and glare.

“You’ve emerged the victor, and still you toy with me. Must cruelty be your final act?” Though my words acted as a futile defense, without skill in magic or the sword, manipulation was the only weapon I had left, one I would utilize until my dying breath.

His blade lowered just slightly, in grim acknowledgment more than hesitation. “No, cruelty was never the goal.”

I blinked hard to keep the tears from spilling down my cheeks. “Then what is this?” I spat. “A lesson? A punishment?”

His expression shifted, unreadable. “More like a test, one you were never meant to pass.”

My throat tightened. “So it was always going to end like this.”

“Not always,” he murmured. “But considering who you are, in the end this outcome was inevitable.” The sword rose again, high enough that I could see my reflection in the steel, a mask of defiance over despair. “Close your eyes. Or don’t. Either way, it will be quick.”

Though I wanted nothing more than to look away rather than see death’s approach, I refused to give him that satisfaction—to allow him to smother the spark he spoke of before it ever fully caught flame.

Stubbornness locked my jaw as I met my murderer’s gaze head-on, the last defiance left to me…

only to find myself trapped not just by his blade, but by his eyes—dark and fathomless, hiding everything I had never been able to uncover.

Even throughout the duration of our empty relationship, I had never managed to solve the riddle of the man behind the mask.

Looking at him was far better than the alternative, but the sword’s slow rise pulled at the edges of my vision, the torchlight catching along the blade in a glint that taunted me with its inevitability.

At the last moment, instinct took hold. I lifted my trembling arms in a feeble attempt to shield myself.

There are no words to describe the all-consuming terror that grips you when you know death is only heartbeats away, nor the crushing despair of knowing that all I had fought for was about to be lost, not only requiring my own life, but endangering countless others.

Years of wasted struggle. Years playing the role of a dutiful princess while secretly scraping together fragments of resistance.

Years of enduring my fiancé’s chilling indifference, of analyzing every word he didn’t say, every glance that might hint at something human…

only to find nothing. Years of maneuvering this court of blood and shadow through state dinners, masquerades, and poisoned banquets, where one misstep meant death.

In the end, there had been no purpose to the agonizing struggle—every sacrifice, every secret had all been for nothing considering I had fallen short of my goal.

I had known from the beginning that failure was the most likely outcome, yet still I had gambled everything, because success had meant more than just survival—it had meant freedom. Even knowing the nearly impossible odds, I had believed I could beat them…and yet I had lost.

They say your life flashes before your eyes before death, but all I saw was a gilded cage.

My entire life had been a prison—one that until now I now realized had been not a lifelong sentence but death row.

The moment I dared try to be more than a royal pawn, it had been cruelly snatched away…

and I didn’t even know where everything had gone wrong.

Perhaps it was the moment I believed I could be more than a royal commodity; the mistake was ever daring to hope, a regret far more painful than even my impending death.

The terror I fought to suppress surged through me as he lifted his sword. My lip trembled. “Please.” Pride and dignity meant nothing now, not in the face of my eternal silence.

He paused, sword poised to strike. Silence cloaked us as we stared at one another. “I’ll make it quick, Bernice.”

It wasn’t a true apology, unsurprising when in Thorndale, subjects apologized to the monarchy for the slightest inconvenience, never the other way around. But in this final moment, the gesture seemed almost like a fragment of mercy.

And he’d used my name without its title, a recognition he had never bestowed throughout the entire duration of our courtship, another mystery I would never solve.

Despite all my resolve to face death bravely, at the last second I closed my eyes so that the final thing I saw was the fleeting emotion reflected in his gaze, a mirror to my own regret. A foolish notion for a man who didn’t feel, his only emotion not sorrow, but solely pride.

The blade struck, a precise, clean thrust through my heart.

A sharp gasp tore from my throat—a ragged, guttural sound I didn’t recognize as searing pain spread across my chest, coughing blood as warmth flooded my lungs.

The agony was unbearable. My legs gave out as I lost the strength to stand; the world spun around me as I collapsed to the cold stone floor.

Somewhere amid the pain consuming my senses, my incoherent thoughts faintly detected a light touch, fingers against my cheek, as if someone were offering a feeble form of comfort…

but only my murderer was present. It must have been a final hallucination, my dying mind’s desperate grasp at solace before the end.

I was faltering, fading. Consuming darkness rose like a tide, engulfing me as if swallowing me whole, until I was drowning in it. Thicker than shadow, deeper than night, a nothingness that erased everything I had ever been.

Princess Bernice—the girl sold to the formidable Kingdom of Thorndale, the bride-to-be of the monster who had ended our political arrangement with a sword to my heart that had never belonged to anyone.

Darkness.

Darkness.

Darkness.

And finally…

Death.

It should have been final…yet in the timeless, weightless void, something stirred. A tremor, faint and strange, rippled through the black, like a whisper breaking the silence, a spark flickering through the eternal nothingness.

A single thread suddenly shimmered, thin and golden, unseen, yet unmistakably real.

It wrapped around me and tugged, refusing to let go, as if someone, somewhere, was reaching for me.

Something about its pattern and the way it wound through my senses felt familiar…

then the darkness cracked and something… reversed .