Esmira (Enora)
Lord Aven’s footsteps faded down the corridor, and finally, I was alone.
I sat at the vanity, staring at the face in the mirror.
Lord Aven was right about one thing — this girl would not survive here.
I reached for the bowl of water and towel on the vanity and slowly began wiping my face, dipping the cloth in the water, careful not to get my bloodied fingers into the bowl.
A while later, I’d gotten all the stains from my face and neck.
What remained were my slightly swollen, red eyes.
I dipped my fingers into the bowl next and scrubbed hard at the blood that had dried on my nails and upper arms until it was clean.
Then I gently wiped my hands on the towel and faced the mirror again.
If I was going to live truly, not just exist and be at the mercy of Lord Aven and his house, then I needed to stop being Enora Hale pretending to be Princess Esmira.
I needed to become Princess Esmira herself.
I needed to learn her mannerisms, know her history, her relationships, her voice and every unique thing about her.
And I knew almost nothing.
These past few days, I’d been so consumed with grief and fear that I hadn’t once stopped to ask the most basic question: who was Princess Esmira of House Eldarion, heir to the throne of Ceranthia?
What did she care about?
Who did she trust?
What was her relationship with Lysara, with her father, and with the Sorvanes?
I’d come dangerously close to being exposed twice today, first by Lysara, then by Alpha Eldric.
Both times, I’d survived by luck, not skill.
And in places like this, luck would eventually run out.
If I wanted answers, I needed to start where everything began.
The library.
The place where I’d first found Esmira.
My eyes drifted to the corner of the room where the tapestry hung.
The hidden door Lysara had used to enter my chambers this morning, and I wondered where the passage behind it led.
I crossed the room and pulled the tapestry aside.
The narrow door was still slightly ajar from Lysara’s entrance, so I pushed it open and peered inside.
A dark corridor stretched ahead.
Cold air drifted from somewhere deeper inside, carrying the faint smell of dust.
For a moment, I hesitated.
Every sensible part of me said to close the door and go back to the vanity of being a good imposter, but how long would it take before I became another cold body in this palace?
I took a deep breath and stepped inside.
The corridor was pitch dark.
I moved with one hand trailing along the wall and the other stretched out in front of me as a guide, in case there were any obstacles.
After what felt like an eternity, my fingers found another door, and I pushed it open carefully, blinking as light spilt in.
The passage led to a hallway.
I looked left, then right, and nearly stumbled with surprise when I noticed that three doors down, on the left side of the corridor, was a set of heavy wooden doors I recognised immediately.
The palace library.
The hidden passage connected the queen’s chambers directly to this hallway.
Someone could travel between the two without passing a single servant, guard, or witness.
As if to confirm, I stood in the corridor for a full minute.
No one passed, no footsteps, no voices, no movement at all.
The hallway was a dead zone.
Lysara had used this passage to reach my chambers.
She’d known about it and used it without hesitation, which meant she’d walked it many times before.
Had she walked it the night Esmira died?
I shook my head.
Esmira had died in the library, not in her room.
But the thought lingered.
I drew in a shaky breath and moved toward the library.
The doors were unlocked.
I stood before them, my hand on the iron handle, and for a moment, the memory of the real Esmira lying in her blood, eyes staring at the ceiling with white lilies scattered, surged through my mind.
I shook my head as if to clear it and pushed the door open, stepping inside.
The library was quiet.
Candlelight from wall-mounted brackets cast a warm glow across the bookshelves, and the reading table near the entrance held a stack of books and a half-empty inkwell.
Rays of sunshine peeked through the drawn curtains.
Everything looked orderly, as though nothing had ever happened here.
My eyes moved to the floor where Esmira’s body had lain; it was spotless.
There was no trace of blood or stain.
They had erased her from this room the same way they had erased me from my life.
I knelt and pressed my palm flat against the cold stone.
Aside from being a princess, who had she been — this woman whose death had swallowed my existence?
What had she done to deserve a blade in her chest on the night before her wedding?
Lysara had said they were best friends.
Lysara had also said “I see, you survived” as though she had expected her not to.
I rose and looked toward the shelves.
If Esmira had spent time in this library and as a visiting princess preparing for a royal wedding, she likely had — perhaps she’d left something behind.
Notes, letters, a book.
Anything that could help me understand who I was supposed to be.
I moved deeper into the library, scanning the floor around the area where the body had lain.
I didn’t even know what I was looking for.
I crouched near the base of the nearest shelf, within arm’s reach of where Esmira’s head had been, and that’s when I saw it.
A glint of something between two floor stones, half-hidden in the narrow gap where the shelf met the ground.
I reached for it and pulled it free.
It was a beautiful, deep crimson stone, dark as fig, set in an intricate silver filigree shaped like a coiling serpent.
The craftsmanship was exquisite, far too fine to belong to just anyone.
I turned it over in my fingers, wondering if it had belonged to Esmira.
As I straightened, still examining my discovery, I heard footsteps approaching the library from the corridor.
I froze and turned toward the door, staring at it.
“Lord Aven, welcome. Since we’re all here, shall I open the library doors?”
“Has anyone accessed this room since the incident?” Lord Aven’s voice cut through, ignoring the question.
“No, my lord,” the first voice said.
“It’s been sealed as you instructed.”
Then the door handle began to turn.
Without thinking, I spun and dashed into the aisles, darting past the first row of shelves and turning into the second.
I pressed my body flat against the bookcase at the far end, my hand clamped over my mouth, my chest heaving.
If Lord Aven found me here, I would be in serious trouble.
I heard the door swing open, followed by multiple footsteps entering the library, the rustle of coats and low murmurs.
“Varek,” Lord Aven’s voice rang out.
“The maids you used to clean up, did they find anything at all?”
“Nothing, my lord,” Lord Varek said quietly.
I recognised his voice instantly.
He’d been one of the men in the room that night.
“But what exactly are you looking for? Perhaps telling us would make it easier to find.”
“It’s an earring. Silver filigree, serpent design, set with a Ceranthian bloodstone. It was reported missing on the day of the incident, and it cannot be found anywhere else in the palace.”
My heart stopped.
I looked down at my hand.
The crimson stone glinted back at me from between my clenched fingers; the serpent coiled around it, beautiful and damning.
I was holding the exact item Lord Aven was looking for.
“Perhaps it’s in her bedroom,” another voice offered.
“And you think I didn’t check, Jon?” Lord Aven’s voice was filled with a frustration I had never heard from him before.
“It’s nowhere in the palace. I’ve had the whole place turned over. That earring is the piece we’d use to regain Alpha King Eldric’s trust.”
I pressed harder against the bookcase, my pulse hammering so violently I was certain they could hear it.
How could an earring be a tool to regain my father’s trust?
I slipped the earring into the pocket of my gown, and as I looked up, I saw her.
A girl, crouched at the base of the shelf to my right, pressed into the narrow gap between the bookcase and the wall.
She was young — maybe younger than me — with wide, terrified eyes and a servant’s uniform streaked with dust.
She was clutching a small leather-bound book to her chest.
Our eyes met.
Hers widened further, and she breathed a single, trembling whisper.
“Y-Your Highness?”