Page 31 of Revert (The Royal Chronicles #4)

I nvestigations were far more difficult to conduct when one’s mind was a tangle of sleepless questions with no clear answers. Morning sunlight streamed through my windows like a lie, deceptively warm and gentle, a soft contrast to the storm churning inside me.

Sleep had offered no rest, only echoes. Dreams too vivid—of arms that had once held me like I mattered, of tender words that still whispered across my skin: you could ask for the kingdom, and I think I would have to give it to you .

I moved through my morning routine like a ghost, caught in a fog between clarity and confusion.

I felt Liora’s worried glances, but was too consumed with my own thoughts to reassure her.

I had come here with a mission, but with every step, I felt myself drifting further from it.

No matter how I tried to file last night away under manipulation or distraction, the pieces refused to fit.

But the memory of tenderness could only linger so long. Caution enfolded me like armor as I stepped into the palace corridors. I had secrets to uncover, and whatever had passed between Castiel and me in the shadows, I couldn’t afford to forget my purpose.

The court felt quieter today, the invisible surveillance that constantly followed more pointed and watchful. I told myself I was imagining it, but no hollow reassurance could ease the unsettling sense that the shadows trailing behind me no longer felt like just mine.

I made my way towards the library, intending to bury myself in research in hopes of unearthing something, anything , that might lead me closer to the truth. But I slowed at the faint murmur of voices drifting from the corridor off the antechamber—the one that curved towards the throne room.

Apprehension prickled across my skin with each step, instinct urging me to turn around.

One of the first rules of the royal court: never disturb Their Majesties in a private meeting.

But then I heard it—Castiel’s voice. Though the words were muffled, one phrase cut through with unmistakable clarity: “… Princess Bernice …”

My heart gave a sharp jolt at the sound of my name.

Despite the alarms sounding frantically in my head, warning me back, curiosity eclipsed caution, snuffing out the very instinct that had kept me alive thus far.

I wasn’t meant to be here, and yet something in the air tugged at me, as though an invisible thread had wound itself around me and was drawing me forward.

The ornate doors ahead were slightly ajar, just enough for sound to slip through.

That alone was unusual, though the hard, suspicious looks the guards stationed outside gave me were more standard.

I knew I couldn’t linger under their watchful gaze, but I was desperate to know what they were saying about me.

I continued down the hall before making a turn and doubling back down the corridor that ran behind the throne room. This entrance was also slightly ajar—perhaps to air out the stuffy room—and was likewise guarded. But the guards hadn’t yet noticed me, so if I could find a way to creep closer…

“Your Highness.” The low voice made me jump and I spun, wide-eyed, to face Halric.

“What are you doing here?” I hissed, though I knew the answer as clearly as he did. He was following orders, which were to keep a close eye on me. My guards had been on high alert all morning after I’d evaded them the night before.

“You shouldn’t.” His eyes were serious as he looked from me to the door, from which I could hear the faint echo of voices, too soft for me to catch the words.

“I have to know,” I whispered.

After a moment’s indecision he sighed and nodded reluctantly.

Motioning for me to stay where I was, he walked briskly down the hall.

The guards at the door snapped to attention as he approached and he engaged them in conversation, asking questions about shift change and praising their attentiveness.

I scarcely heard his words, my eyes fixed on his hands clasped behind his back.

Finally, he made the slightest motion with one finger and I eased forward.

Halric shifted to the other side of the door, drawing the gazes of the guards away from me.

I had just enough time to slip into a small alcove near the door, standing behind an ornate urn where no one would see me unless they walked down the hall.

The words drifting from inside were faint and difficult to make out, but with focused concentration I could pick up part of the conversation in the throne room.

“…she questioned the nature of Thorndale’s darkness with a servant , Castiel.” The king’s voice, cold and dripping with disdain. “Openly, carelessly. As if such remarks do not betray weakness, treason—or worse, the threat of influence.”

Treason . The word caught in my throat like ice.

“She exerts no influence; her weakness is our strength.” Castiel’s voice was tight and controlled, but even through the veil by detachment, the current of emotion beneath it was unmistakable.

“For all her ignorance, she possesses enough sense not to overstep the boundaries we’ve firmly set for her. ”

Fear tangled my thoughts as I scrambled to piece together their meaning.

My conversation with Liora. For a horrified moment I wondered if she had betrayed me, before reminding myself there were plenty of other ways the king could have obtained his information—whether through his magical spies, or his human ones, his many watching eyes that lurked everywhere. I had no time to dwell on how.

“You know that wasn’t once true,” the king snapped. “In the end intentions do not matter—perception is everything. If she’s already infecting the palace staff with doubt, how long before she incites full disloyalty? She’s reckless. Unfit. A danger to the throne you will one day rule.”

A long, heavy pause followed, the kind that made the air go still, as if the palace itself was listening. And then I heard Castiel’s voice, quiet and deliberate: “You need not worry—her influence cannot create change when I refuse to allow it to reach me. I hate her.”

The words sliced through me, far more painfully than his sword ever had.

“ Hate ,” the king sneered. “Is that what you call your previous deviation? If it’s truly hatred you feel, you’ve had an…unusual way of demonstrating it, both then and now.”

“The man I was isn’t who I am anymore,” Castiel said. “I’ve learned from my mistakes. I’ll never allow attachment to cloud my judgment again. Rest assured, I loathe that woman with every fiber of my being.”

My heart pounded so hard I feared it would betray me.

But beneath the ache, a quiet certainty stirred: He’s protecting me.

The gentleness cradling his voice last night, the apology, the tenderness in the shadows when no one had been watching.

Those hadn’t been lies, only this—the mask he had to wear, the role he had to play.

The suffocating silence following his cruel pronouncement seemed to extend forever. I imagined the king examining every syllable, parsing the tone for the lies he suspected lay hidden. I desperately prayed he wouldn’t find them.

Even through the blood rushing in my ears, I caught the king’s next words, smug and approving. “Good. Then see to it that your behavior reflects it. Give me no reason to doubt you.”

Instinct warned that I’d lingered too long. Cautiously easing out from behind the urn, I peeked to see that the guards were looking away and slowly started to back away, but before I could move, I heard the king’s voice speaking more loudly than before—honeyed now, but laced with steel.

“Ah, Princess Bernice, impeccable timing. We were just discussing you. Why don’t you come in and enlighten us on your true loyalties?”

Horror seized my breath. I had been caught.

The guards moved to flank me, guiding me to the doorway as they threw it open.

I stumbled, catching myself on the frame, clutching it like a lifeline.

Down the hall, I caught a glimpse of Halric’s pale face just before he turned and walked away.

I vainly wished he was going for backup, but I knew better—he was powerless here.

Heart pounding, I turned back towards the open threshold and dizzily peered into the shadowed throne room…straight into the king’s cold gaze.

“Well, well, if it isn’t the little eavesdropper herself.” His tone turned sharp, mocking. “I can’t even trust you to keep to areas where you’re invited, or to refrain from listening to conversations that are none of your concern. But since you’re here…why don’t you join us?”

I knew that tone: it wasn’t a request. Every reflex drilled into me by court etiquette urged me to obey, but terror rooted me in place. For a flicker of a moment, I thought I saw something in Castiel’s eyes—panic, or regret—but it vanished just as quickly, masked beneath princely detachment.

“Are you deaf in addition to incompetent?” the king snapped. “Get in here before I drag you. I will not ask again.”

I tried to move, to obey…but fear had paralyzed me. I had seen firsthand what this man was capable of. He wouldn’t hesitate to strike me down—or worse, order one of his guards to do it for him while he watched with sick delight.

In the end, it wasn’t duty that finally thawed what terror had frozen, but Castiel. “Come in, Princess.” His voice was sharp, almost cruel, but beneath it, I heard a trembling plea to heed the king’s command.

His presence gave me just enough strength. Though instinct screamed for me to run, I moved like a marionette, each trembling step guided not by will but by survival, strengthened only by the knowledge that I was coming closer to the prince as well as his father.

I straightened my shoulders as the doors creaked open wider and then boomed shut behind me, sealing my fate with ceremonial finality.