Chapter 3 - The Hollow Message

  The library of Caelistra-Veyrath Manor was a pce long forgotten, like her.

  Once grand and full of life, it now sat beneath yers of dust and silence. Shelves lined with fading leather spines stretched high above, and a scent of old parchment and wood lingered in the air like a ghost too stubborn to leave. Few came here anymore. The room was too still, too full of memories, and too close to the man who made this pce a house rather than a cage.

  But that morning, after nights of sleeplessness and restless pacing, Lilienne found herself drawn to it.

  She didn’t know what she was searching for.

  Maybe it was distraction. Maybe it was a trace of him, her father. Or maybe it was the hope that something here, in this pce that once belonged to the Caelistras before Veyrath blood ruled the halls, would remind her of who she had been before everything was ripped away.

  The storm outside had passed, but the clouds hung heavy and low, muting the light that filtered through the tall windows. Her bare feet made soft sounds on the cold marble floor, the hem of her nightdress brushing along behind her. Her fingers drifted over cracked spines and curling parchment, trailing without purpose. She paused before a section of military histories and journals, books her father used to read.

  She could still hear his voice. Low. Steady. Patient.

  Back then, she hadn’t understood the words. Only that he was near.

  Now, she pulled one of the older volumes from the shelf. Its spine was brittle, the cover scuffed and faded. The Wars of Voltheria: Tales of Honor and Loss. It was heavy.. too heavy, she thought, for a book unread in years. She opened it slowly, careful with the fragile pages.

  And something slipped out.

  A folded paper fluttered to the floor like a dying leaf.

  Lilienne’s breath caught. Slowly, she crouched and picked it up. The paper was yellowed, edges soft with time, creased in careful, practiced folds. Not an idle note. Not a forgotten bookmark.

  This had been pced with purpose.

  Her fingers trembled as she unfolded it.

  “To the one left behind,

  If you are reading this, then you seek answers. Know that Sirius Alistair Nocthrein did not fall to illness, nor to fate. His death was not an accident. It was a silence crafted by fear. His name was erased not because he was weak—but because he knew too much, and spoke too freely. There are truths buried in the heart of Voltheria, truths that noble tongues dare not utter. He was betrayed.

  Seek the kingdom where he once stood.

  The hero is forgotten, but not lost.

  —L.”

  Her hands tightened around the letter. Her throat burned with something raw and wordless. Another letter, like the first. But this one had never been delivered. It had waited for her in silence.

  It had waited because someone knew she would need it.

  Her eyes scanned the page again, as if searching for a hidden meaning. And then she saw it, tucked into the corner, small and subtle, not waxed but drawn with ink.

  A blue rose.

  House Lysarian.

  Her heart skipped. The mark wasn’t meant for the court. It was meant for her.

  Lilienne sank down onto the nearby bench, the letter cradled against her chest. Her breath shook.

  Her father, her brave, patient, strong father, had been taken.

  Not by sickness. Not by fate.

  By them.

  She stared down at the words again. The truth was a bde she had not been prepared to hold, but one that fit perfectly in her hand.

  All those years. All those unanswered questions. The silence from her mother. The contempt in Thaddeus’ sneer. The way Cassian’s voice always twisted when her father’s name came up. How Seraphyne looked away. How no one ever spoke of him beyond vague, rehearsed condolences.

  She had believed silence meant grief.

  But now she knew, it had meant guilt.

  Her thoughts raced, colliding and tumbling like thunderclouds. Why House Lysarian? Why had they risked this? What did they know? Did they still watch from afar?

  Upstairs, she id the new letter beside the first. Side by side, they painted something terrible, a story never spoken aloud.

  Her father’s death had been a message. A warning.

  Now someone was giving her one in return.

  She stared at the letters long into the afternoon, pacing her room in slow, anxious circles. At some point, she drew her eyes to the map pinned above her desk. The capital, Tharelle, loomed in dark ink, bold, looming. The center of Voltheria’s nobility. The seat of DeLacroix power. The pce where her father had once stood proudly, before his memory was buried.

  Lilienne reached for the line that marked the road from Caelistra territory to Tharelle. Her hand hovered there for a moment.

  She had never traveled alone.

  But nothing here held her anymore.

  Not Thaddeus, whose st words to her had been hollow with disdain. Not Cassian and Seraphyne, who passed her like dust. Not her mother, who wept only behind locked doors and flinched when Lilienne drew too close.

  No. This wasn’t a home.

  This was a tomb.

  And she had already spent too much time dead inside it.

  That night, she returned to the library. She lit a single mp and pulled her father’s journals from the highest shelves, stacking them like relics. She read until the candle burned low.

  Most were detailed, methodical. Battle records. Tactic notes. But here and there, she found pages stained with urgency.

  “The council grows restless. They speak in riddles and silence. Too many secrets pass through DeLacroix halls.”

  “I worry for Isalyn. I’ve seen the way Veyrath eyes her. He pys the long game.”

  “Prince Ravien shows promise. I pray he remains untainted by the rot around him.”

  Lilienne blinked. The now crown prince, Ravien?

  Her mind reached, sifting through distant memory. A silver-haired boy with quiet golden eyes. A formal gathering. She had dropped a toy. He had picked it up, kneeling as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Kind. Gentle.

  Not like the others.

  He had smiled at her.

  She hadn’t forgotten.

  Was this the same Ravien? The prince her father believed in?

  She didn’t know.

  But she would find out.

  She folded the letters, tucking them into her satchel with care. The satchel itself was nearly empty, just a few coins saved from birthdays, her father’s ring with the Nocthrein crest, a dark traveling cloak she hadn’t worn in years.

  She had no pn. Only truth, and the aching need to follow it.

  —-

  Lilienne stood by the window, fingers pressed against the cold gss as she stared at the horizon. The sky was still ink-dark, a few stars clinging to the fading night. She turned when she heard the door creak softly.

  Seryll entered with quiet steps, her arms folded across her chest. “You’ve made up your mind, haven’t you?”

  Lilienne nodded slowly. “I’m going to Tharelle. To the capital. I’ve decided… I’ll find out what really happened to my father.”

  Seryll's face darkened. “Lilienne, that’s dangerous. You know how Thaddeus feels about General Sirius. If he finds out you’ve gone to the royal pace, he’ll.. he’ll lose it.”

  “I know,” Lilienne said, her voice firm. “But if I don’t do this, then… why am I even here?” Her hands clenched at her sides. “Every day I stay silent, I feel like I’m just existing. Not living. If there's even the smallest chance that I can find the truth.. then I have to take it.”

  Seryll looked at her for a long moment before sighing deeply. “You're too much like him sometimes. Stubborn to a fault.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  Seryll shook her head with a weary smile. “Fine. But you’ll pack light, and you’ll leave before dawn. I’ll help you get everything ready.”

  They worked quickly, quietly. Lilienne packed only the essentials: pin clothes, a small pouch of coin, and her father’s old pendant. Seryll prepared food and carefully wrapped a few herbs in cloth, tucking them into a hidden pocket of Lilienne’s satchel.

  “I should come with you,” Seryll said at st, pcing a cloak over Lilienne’s shoulders. “It’s safer that way.”

  But Lilienne shook her head. “It’s too risky. If anything happens and Thaddeus realizes you were involved…”

  Seryll looked away, clearly unhappy but understanding. “Then I’ll stay. But if anything goes wrong, you send a word. Immediately.”

  “I will,” Lilienne promised.

  Just before the sky began to lighten, Seryll led her to the side gate where a simple carriage waited. She’d arranged for it in secret under Lilienne’s orders, carefully timed so neither Thaddeus, nor Isalyn, nor anyone at the manor would notice her disappearance until it was too te.

  Lilienne gnced back once at the manor, her heart beating fast. Then she climbed into the carriage.

  As the wheels turned and the forest swallowed the road behind her, Lilienne whispered to herself, “I’ll find out what happened, father. No matter what.”