Page 9 of Revert (The Royal Chronicles #4)

I vainly hoped that would be the end of it—that the prince would retreat into the shadows and resume whatever schemes occupied him between court appearances and calculated smiles.

But the night had barely passed—filled as always with restless dreams and shadowed memories—when a sealed summons arrived bearing the royal crest. Delivered not from a court courier, as would have been customary, but by one of the prince’s personal guards on a silver tray, as if it were an invitation to a ball rather than my inevitable execution.

My fingers trembled as I broke the seal, bracing for the worst, but the message contained only a time, a location, and a single sentence written in his steady, unmistakable hand: You’ll want to see this . Brief and cryptic, precisely His Highness’s style.

But the elegant calligraphy on gilded parchment couldn’t disguise the command, undoubtedly a continuation of last night’s encounter that I should have known better than to think concluded.

My fists clenched. I crumpled the summons and tossed it into the fire, but the flames did nothing to burn away the threat woven into every word.

I had expected silence to be his final word—that he would vanish back into the shadows, leaving me only with the dread and confusion he always managed to stir.

I’d dared to wonder—just for a breath—if my betrothed was capable of mercy.

But this felt like cruelty, a calculated game meant to toy with me, an extension of my punishment.

If he had intended to kill me, I would have preferred he had done so last night rather than lure me into a false sense of security, only to delay the inevitable.

I yearned to ignore the summons and pretend it had never arrived, but such cowardice would profit me nothing—in this gilded prison, there was nowhere I could hide where he wouldn’t find me.

At the appointed hour, I gathered my composure around me like a shield and made the excruciating journey to our determined meeting place, towards whatever fate awaited me.

It was an unspoken rule of court to arrive at least a quarter hour early for any appointment with the king or crown prince; I exceeded that expectation, arriving a half hour before the appointed time, punctuality being one of the few tools that might compel him to extend the grace I so desperately desired.

To my horror Prince Castiel was already there, posture rigid and hands clasped behind his back as he studied a tapestry depicting a rather gruesome battle. The depiction of bloodied swords and fallen men was hardly the most comforting direction for his thoughts to linger.

At the sound of my approach, he turned slightly, nodding once in acknowledgment. “I’m surprised you showed up.”

As though I’d had any choice. Only sheer survival instinct kept me from voicing the biting retort burning my lips. Instead, I forced them upwards in a tight, brittle smile.

“Of course. I always welcome time with my fiancé, especially considering we ended our time together rather abruptly last night.” The words were carefully chosen, delivered with the grace of courtly etiquette, just enough to let me feel some semblance of control, though deep down I knew it was merely an illusion.

Garron, the prince’s accompanying guard, coughed awkwardly.

Too late I realized how my comment might have been misconstrued.

The prince and I had been alone last night, absent of even the presence of guards.

I had unintentionally made it sound as though he had summoned me for an illicit tryst, an unforgivable slip that cast him in a compromising light.

Such slander, however accidental, was considered pure treason in Thorndale.

I cursed myself. Normally, I would have sidestepped such a misstep with ease, but I seemed to have left my composure behind in my original timeline.

I cast a hesitant glance at Prince Castiel, expecting a flicker of irritation, if not outright anger. But his expression remained unreadable, no trace of emotion flickering across his stoic features, not even embarrassment.

“The hour was late,” he said at last, his voice calm. “I thought it best to continue our discussion today.”

I looked away, saying nothing, my throat thick with the remnants of last night’s terror. The tendrils of that encounter still clung to me, curling around my thoughts and clouding my focus. Diplomatic ease—once instinctive—now felt distant and unreachable.

I expected him to press the issue, but to my surprise he simply narrowed his eyes. “You’ve kept me waiting long enough. Come.” Without waiting for my reply, he turned and strode down the corridor, his footsteps echoing with the expectation that I would follow. I didn’t dare disappoint him.

We walked in silence, one more unsettling than usual, thick with tension that pulsed with every step. I couldn't stop obsessing over my earlier faux pas , analyzing it in agonizing detail, flinching at every imagined consequence.

Apologize . Pride resisted the idea, but in the end prudence reigned victor. Should the prince actually possess a good side, it was in my best interest to remain on it.

“Forgive me for earlier,” I murmured. “I didn’t mean to imply anything inappropriate by my words.”

He blinked, as if the memory had only just caught up with him. He cleared his throat. “It’s nothing. What the court thinks matters little. You and I know the true nature of our meeting last night, and that is enough.”

His response surprised me, but not as much as the faintest hint of color that rose to his cheeks, nor the almost shy way he looked away—the first crack I’d seen in the armor of the formidable man who had once killed me, offering me a glimpse not of the prince or executioner, but of something more human.

He hesitated before offering a surprising continuation. “I also don’t fault you for anything spoken while uncomfortable; I know you would prefer not to be alone with me.”

I stiffened. Though his observation was entirely accurate, the fact that he’d noticed meant I’d failed to maintain the charade of a dutiful fiancée, allowing my fear to dictate my movements like a traitorous puppeteer tugging at strings I thought I’d concealed.

“That’s not true.” But my voice cracked, betraying my lie.

He arched a brow. “Forgive me, I must have mistaken your peculiar behavior of late for fear . I welcome the correction.”

His look held a challenge, but behind it lay something more. Not cruelty, or even mockery, but the glint of an emotion I had never seen in him before, something dangerously close to…amusement.

Its unnatural presence unsettled me more than any of his threats ever had, because amusement from someone like him could never be harmless. Even when he was toying with me as he so often did, it was part of a game I would give anything to no longer be forced to play.

“You’re mistaking fear for respect and the awe I feel in your presence.” I nearly gagged on the words, barely managing to force them past the revulsion scorching my tongue.

He snorted—an unrestrained, derisive sound. “Please never say such a thing to me again. I get enough of that nonsense from the court. I am not a god, just a man. You needn’t put me on a pedestal with your words—I know you don’t truly feel that way.”

His protest surprised me. The king had always reveled in flattery, and Prince Castiel had never objected to the lavish treatment; I had assumed he thrived on it as well.

“That is the system of Thorndale I have grown accustomed to,” I said once I’d recaptured my voice.

My mind raced, trying to guess whether this was another trap—this one verbal—that could close about me if I let down my guard and allowed the prince see what I actually thought of the royal family.

He frowned, as if something about my answer unsettled him. “You’re not wrong…but while it would be unwise to behave otherwise in the king’s presence, I hope that when we’re alone, you might treat me less like the crown prince and more like Castiel .”

He was asking the impossible. For as long as I had been in Thorndale, I hadn’t known there was a man behind the title.

If one existed beneath the layers of court masks and military command, he was buried too deep for me to find.

How could I ever see him as Castiel when every time I looked at him, all I saw was my killer?

Besides, we were never truly alone, not in a palace where shadows had eyes, and even silence served the king.

I had no response to this unexpected deviation in our conversation, but fortunately he didn’t seem to be expecting one.

The prince said nothing more for the remainder of our walk, his pace steady and deliberate, as if we were headed on some mundane errand rather than en route to what I was still half-convinced might be my execution.

But his silence carried weight, as did the path he led me down, away from the gilded heart of the palace, deeper into the buried stones of its past.

The farther we walked, the more the court’s grandeur faded behind us. These were not the corridors used by nobles or guests—these narrow halls were older and half-forgotten, their plaster cracked, the high windows so thin they filtered in only the faintest slivers of light.

Eventually, we reached a heavy oak door, its darkened wood scarred by time and secured with iron. “What is this place?” I asked, careful not to let my unease slip too far into my voice.

He didn’t answer as he unlocked it and pushed it open. I braced myself for chains—the cold stone of a dungeon, an oubliette, or perhaps a one-way stop at the chopping block from which I would never return—yet the room beyond was not a place of execution, but a tomb of memory.