PROLOGUE — THE FORSAKEN DAUGHTER
I used to think the castle walls listened.
They held every laugh my mother and sister shared, every soft conversation drifting down the corridor, every moment I watched from the doorway instead of stepping inside. Queen Elowen and Seraphine fit together like two halves of the same tapestry — elegant, bright, woven with gold thread. I was the loose stitch, always catching on the edges, always threatening to unravel something if I pulled too hard.
The walls knew that. Or at least, I imagined they did. When you grow up in silence, you start giving your quiet places a voice.
Mother would sit by the window in the solar, brushing Seraphine’s hair while the late sun turned them both to firelight. The room always smelled faintly of lavender oil and warm dust, the kind that clings to old tapestries and forgotten corners. I’d linger in the hall, pretending I was only passing through, pretending it didn’t sting when neither of them noticed me.
Sometimes I’d press my palm to the stone archway, feeling the warmth of the sun that had touched them but not me. I’d trace the grooves in the stone, the tiny cracks, the places where time had worn the castle down. I wondered if it remembered every queen who’d sat in that chair, every daughter who’d been loved without question.
Seraphine would talk about court lessons, about the noble girls she’d met, about the gowns she’d wear for the spring festival. She always spoke with her hands — graceful, animated, alive in a way I never felt allowed to be. Mother would smile, warm and soft, the kind of smile I never seemed to earn.
I loved them.
I envied them.
I hated myself for both.
Sometimes Mother would glance at me — a quick flicker, like she’d remembered I existed — and she’d say, “Lily, darling, come sit with us.” But by the time I stepped forward, the moment had already passed. Seraphine would be laughing at something, Mother’s attention pulled back to her, and I’d sit quietly, hands folded, a ghost at their hearth.
I told myself it was enough just to be near them.
I told myself I didn’t need more.
But the truth was a sharp thing, even then. It lived under my ribs, a constant pressure, a reminder that love given unevenly can feel like a wound.
There were days I tried to earn it — staying late in the library to memorize court histories, practicing my posture until my back ached, forcing myself to speak with the same airy confidence Seraphine had been born with. But no matter how hard I tried, I always felt like an echo of someone else’s daughter.
Rowan didn’t help. He’d ruffle Seraphine’s hair, tease her, call her “little star.” He’d pass me in the hall with a nod that felt more like a dismissal. He wasn’t cruel — not then — but he was distant, unreachable, a sun I wasn’t meant to orbit.
Sometimes I wondered if I’d been switched at birth. If some nursemaid had made a mistake and placed me in the wrong cradle. If that was why Mother’s eyes always softened for Seraphine but only flickered for me.
But then there were rare moments — fleeting, fragile — when Mother would brush a strand of hair behind my ear or kiss my forehead goodnight. Moments that felt like stolen sunlight. Moments I hoarded like treasure.
I didn’t know how few of them I had left.
The night everything changed began like any other — with me watching from the shadows of a life that never seemed to have room for me.
The castle was quiet, the kind of quiet that feels wrong, like the air is holding its breath. Even the torches seemed uneasy, their flames bending as though trying to lean away from something unseen. I remember the way the light trembled across the stone, stretching long, thin shadows that looked almost like reaching hands.
I remember thinking the walls were listening again.
I didn’t know they were listening to a murder.
A scream cut through the silence — short, strangled, swallowed too quickly. It wasn’t the kind of scream that echoed. It was the kind that died the moment it was born.
My blood froze.
For a heartbeat, I couldn’t move. Then instinct — or fear — or something older than both shoved me forward. I ran before I could think, feet slapping against cold stone, heart pounding so hard it hurt. The corridor blurred around me, torches streaking like falling stars.
Mother’s chamber door was open.
The world tilted.
Seraphine was kneeling beside the bed, hands shaking, eyes wide with a terror I’d never seen in her. Her nightgown was torn at the shoulder, her hair tangled, her breath coming in sharp, broken gasps. She looked small — impossibly small — like the child she’d been before court life taught her to hide her fear.
And on the floor—
Mother.
Still. Too still.
Her hair spilled like silver water across the stones, her gown torn, her throat—
I couldn’t breathe.
The room smelled of iron and lavender, a sickening mix that made my stomach twist. The torches hissed in the corridor behind me, their flames guttering as though recoiling from the sight.
Seraphine looked up at me, tears streaking her cheeks. Her voice cracked like thin glass. “Lily… what did you do?”
The words hit harder than any blade.
I staggered back, shaking my head, my mouth opening but no sound coming out. I hadn’t touched Mother. I hadn’t even been near her chambers. But Seraphine’s eyes — wide, terrified — saw something else. Something she’d been told to see.
Behind her, in the doorway, stood Rowan — our brother, the heir, the golden prince. His expression was carved from ice, cold and perfect and utterly unreadable. He looked like a statue of himself, something sculpted to resemble a brother but hollow inside.
In his hand, gleaming in the torchlight, was a dagger.
My dagger.
The one he’d given me for my last name‑day. The one he’d insisted I keep “for protection.” The one I’d treasured because it was the only gift he’d ever given me without being prompted.
His voice was calm, almost gentle. “Guards,” he said. “The murderer stands before you.”
The guards hesitated — just for a moment — as if the world itself had stuttered. Then they surged forward, hands gripping my arms, my shoulders, my wrists. The dagger clattered to the floor, its sound sharp enough to slice through the air.
And just like that, the walls stopped listening.
They started whispering instead.
Whispering my name. Whispering guilt. Whispering the story Rowan had already written for me.
