Page 45 of Revert (The Royal Chronicles #4)

Castiel stepped beside me. “This is the king’s design,” he explained.

“A constellation of altered timelines—dozens, likely hundreds. They change constantly, reforming as events are rewritten. Some are so similar you’d never notice the difference.

Others... diverged wildly. All of them shaped to secure his power. ”

I stood still beneath the stars of rewritten history, humbled by their weight.

But I was distracted when something in the air shifted again, as if in recognition.

A new set of threads unfurled from the constellation above—finer, tinted with silver instead of gold.

They drifted downward, curling gently towards me like ribbons caught in a breeze.

I lifted a wondering hand towards the silver filaments, and the chamber responded—a section of the wall shimmered to life, forming a glowing doorway.

“Step through,” Castiel said quietly. “This is your thread.”

The wall gave way as I moved towards the light.

I stepped into a smaller gallery, somehow intimate and achingly familiar.

Threads of soft silver traced along the floor and walls, guiding me like starlight.

Each led to a scenes hovering midair, suspended like glass panes on invisible strings, windows I could peer through to see the memory that lay beyond.

Together, we walked deeper into the chamber of timelines—through memories lost, found, and waiting to be rewritten. My heart pounded as I walked slowly past each one.

There I was, the day I’d first entered court and met Prince Castiel, an event with dozens of iterations—some warm, most cold and wary.

Several captured moments in the early days of my time at court.

As the months passed, I eventually watched myself hiding messages beneath flower pots in the conservatory, slipping poisons into my sleeve, spying beneath the guise of diplomacy, mapping escape routes in the event of betrayal.

Most of these ended in failure—imprisonment, banishment, even execution—until I thought I would drown in the despair.

Another thread glimmered and pulled my gaze, a welcoming glow that drew me closer. My breath caught as I turned a corner…and saw us .

The early records of our courtship were cautious at first, but no matter which timeline we lived, eventually I had learned to see past his emotionless mask to the warm heart that pulsed beneath. A game of trying to get him to smile, his eventual opening his heart up to my eager prodding.

These soon shifted into something tender.

Staring across the ballroom at Castiel with unreadable longing in my eyes, or within the circle of his arms in several variations of our first dance together.

Him brushing hair from my face beneath the boughs of a snow-dusted tree.

Sitting with me in the ruins, our fingers laced, foreheads resting together like we couldn’t bear to be apart.

Kissing me in the privacy of some hidden room, his expression open and aching.

The scenes played one after another, moments my mind couldn’t remember, even as my heart did.

For no matter how drastically the timeline deviated, there was one constancy—again and again, timeline after timeline, our hearts found each other.

Sometimes with laughter, sometimes with tears, sometimes in moments stolen in the dark.

And yet no matter how he tried to keep his distance or attempted to pull away, in each one, the unmistakable pull between us allowed us to always find our way back—the magnetic ache of our love that refused to die, no matter how many times it was erased.

Sometimes we were still in the shy, early stages of opening our hearts to each other when the hourglass pulled us apart.

Other times we carried on a secret relationship for months, plotting our dearest hopes for a future together.

But inevitably each tender moment ended as time spun backward, distancing us.

My heart constricted, filled with both the joy at the recollection and regret at having lost so many cherished memories.

“How could I have forgotten all of these moments?” Whether precious or painful, they had all once been part of me.

I didn’t understand how they could have simply faded away, out of the reach of my recollection.

“You only remember the timelines if you’re inside this chamber when time is reversed,” he explained.

“The only reason you remembered the one where you died by my hand—” He swallowed hard, his voice trembling as he forced the words out.

“—is because you were just outside this chamber when I rewound it…to save you.”

I reached toward one of the scenes, just shy of touching it—the carving of our names in the tree in the abandoned ruins, one of the few I had been able to rediscover on my own, evidence that these precious moments hadn’t been entirely erased by magic, but always remained a part of me.

The memory rippled gently under my palm, like light on water.

“I didn’t know it had always been this way between us.” My chest ached with the weight of it.

Behind me, Castiel finally spoke, his voice hushed.

“Even when you didn’t remember me, I always remembered you.

No matter how much I tried to stay away so my father would have no reason to hurt you, every time some part of you still chose me…

even when I didn’t deserve your love. But oh, how I want it. ”

He stroked my cheek with a tenderness that seemed to link every romantic gesture across the timelines we’d spent falling in love.

“My father is ruled by a burning desire for power and acclaim; that desire commands his every decision. Yet my desire for you is just as powerful—no matter how many times you forget me, I will never stop trying to win your heart anew.”

We stood together in the quiet, surrounded by echoes—of words, of timelines, of kisses both remembered and undone. I could barely fathom the enormity of it, of how many lives I had lived without knowing.

Castiel eventually broke the fragile stillness. “I know it’s unfathomable. Though it appears you’ve only been in Thorndale for five years, in truth it’s been decades, maybe even longer.”

My throat tightened, heart stumbling in my chest as I turned towards him. He wasn’t looking at the scenes, but watching me, his eyes softened with hope and something mournful. “Which one was the original?”

He was quiet for a long moment. “The one that mattered most,” he said at last. “The one where we first fell in love. That timeline is long forgotten now, its only memory remains with me. What could never change or be rewritten is that no matter how many times you forgot, I have never stopped loving you.”

Tears burned at the corners of my vision. “And me. Those are the moments I’ve been remembering, the ones that drew me back to you, even when I didn’t understand why…only for you to push me away.”

He released a long, exhausted sigh—one weighted by the countless lives he’d lived, and the pain each had carved into him.

“No matter how often I was forced to, it never got any easier, or made me miss you any less. Yet my agony would be worth it if I could but protect you.” He turned towards the flickering scenes as though searching for that first life we’d lived together.

“When my father betrothed you to me, I knew it was because he’d chosen someone that met all his criteria: someone of proper nobility, someone who could bring the support of her kingdom, but especially someone he could manipulate.

” A hint of a smile played at the corner of his mouth.

“Or at least he thought he could manipulate you.” His face grew more serious.

“You also came from a very specific family.”

My brow furrowed. A specific family? Other than my royal lineage, he was likely referring to the fact that my father was too ill to make a complaint if his daughter wasn’t treated well.

I dropped my gaze, remembering the long, lonely days when I was new to Thorndale, without even a maidservant for a friend. The one thing that had kept me from breaking was my mission, my sole purpose in enduring a miserable existence.

“I feared the king above all else other than failure,” I said softly. “I used to wish I could confide in you, to have someone to share life with, even if we never fell in love.”

Castiel winced. “I wanted nothing more, but I knew that showing the slightest affection for you, even mere friendship, would draw the king’s suspicion. For two years I managed to play the part of uncaring fiancé…until one day something changed.”

I peered at him curiously. “What happened?”

“One morning when the courier was delivering mail, you ran out of your room to greet him just as I was passing by. He gave you a handful of letters and your eyes were so full of hope as you leafed through them. I thought I’d never seen anything so beautiful.

” He swallowed. “And then the hope was dashed from your eyes. Whatever you were looking for, it wasn’t there, and I’d never seen such unguarded sorrow in you before. ”

I stretched my recollection past the fog of tangled timelines to the years before the shifting began.

“I remember that,” I murmured. “Every day I hoped and prayed that I would receive a letter from my father, telling me he was improved…or at least communicating with me in some way. But he never wrote, and I spent much of my days wondering if he was even still alive.”

I looked up at him thoughtfully as my recollection expanded, allowing me to remember the finer details of what had transpired that day.

“You stopped and asked if I needed anything. The words were simple and perfunctory, but for the first time I had the impression that you actually cared.”

Castiel touched a fingertip to my cheek, capturing a tear I hadn’t realized had fallen—whether from a moment of longing for what could have been, or the ache of missing my ill father.

“I cared long before that, but that moment was when I finally gave in to weakness and allowed my heart to accept the possibility of loving you, even against the king’s wishes.

Had I not done that, you might have been spared the lifetimes you’ve been through.

But no what sorrows we were forced to endure, I couldn’t seem to regret building a relationship with you. ”

“I don’t regret it either,” I whispered.

Something raw filled his expression as he looked at me. “Yet it was always in vain. No matter which life you live, it always ends in your suffering. I can’t bear it anymore. Please help me end it.”

I cradled his face, basking in the nostalgia the simple gesture caused to fill my heart…and now I finally understood why. “Now that I remember, I can’t bear to forget again, or endure another timeline apart from you. Nor do I want you to have to carry this alone any longer. Let me help you.”

He laid his hand over mine, entwining our fingers, the movement as natural as if we’d done it hundreds of times.

“I don’t know how. We’ve been trapped in an endless loop for years, repeating the same cycle over and over.

After your last death that I was forced to perform to trigger the magic that would send you back in time and save you from the king’s wrath, I knew I couldn’t keep doing this.

The only way to finally change it…was to do it together. ”

I squeezed his hand. “Then let’s change history.”

He sighed. “But the primary rule behind the timeline magic is one cannot speak of any of the reverts or alterations outside of this room. All I’ve been able to do is use what I’ve learned across the timelines to stay one step ahead—waiting for the moment I could finally share the truth with you.

Hoping that together, we might find the way out…

just like we almost did the first time. Yet now that we’ve reached the end of my knowledge, I’m lost, without any idea of where to even begin. ”

The words stirred something deep within me, a flicker of remembrance just beyond reach, like a name I almost knew.

As if in response to this almost recollection, the enchantment filling the chamber stirred.

I watched as a sliver of magic twisted, disappearing into a room that lay beyond our sight containing memories I hadn’t yet explored, additional secrets patiently awaiting my discovery.