Esmira (Enora)
I didn’t see Lady Lysara that night.
When I’d found myself in the corridor, there had been no one but me.
“You’re certain it was Lysara?”
“Yes.” Maren nodded.
“First, the red hair. There’s no one else in this palace with hair like that, and she’s the only one among the royals who comes to greet us and give us food at the beginning of the wedding preparations. She’s popular amongst the palace domestic staff.”
I paused to take that in.
Seeing how manipulative Lysara was, it wasn’t a surprise.
So that was her way of building loyalty among the servants, creating a contrast between herself and the princess.
Everyone saw the sweet, loving, kind Lysara, and I was willing to bet that everyone thought the opposite about Esmira.
“And the princess? The real one — what was she like?”
Maren hesitated before speaking.
“They say she was wicked. They called her the Witch Luna. She would ask the warriors to beat the maids assigned to her if any of them came one minute late to her bath time or brought her food later than she wanted.”
That would explain the cowering looks I’d gotten from the maids when I first became Princess Esmira.
The fear in their eyes when I moved through the corridors.
I hadn’t thought much of it, but with this explanation, it made sense.
It also opened my eyes to something else.
There were many people who would have wanted Esmira dead.
Her fiancé and husband-to-be, Alpha Roderic, who didn’t love her.
Lysara, her estranged best friend, who claimed she’d stolen Roderic.
The maids of the palace whom she’d terrorised.
And maybe even House Sorvane?
I shook my head at the last name, biting my fingernails nervously.
House Sorvane needed the princess to advance their goal.
They had no reason to kill her.
I turned back to Maren.
“So what happened next?”
“I didn’t think much of it at the time. People move through the palace at odd hours. I assumed Lysara had been visiting the library or meeting the Alpha King secretly—” She lowered her gaze, her cheeks staining with a blush.
“They used to meet all the time. At random places. The gardens, the—”
“You don’t need to tell me that,” I stopped her, suddenly feeling hot.
I didn’t want the details of Roderic and Lysara’s escapades.
“Just continue.”
She nodded.
“So I went back inside and tried to sleep again.”
She shook her head.
“I couldn’t settle after the noise. About twenty minutes later, I decided to go back to my duties. I was walking past the library when I noticed the door was open.”
Her eyes glazed, and I could see the memory rising behind them.
“When I looked inside, I saw her.”
“Princess Esmira?”
“Yes.” She nodded.
“At that time, I didn’t know she was the princess. I thought it was someone else who’d been injured. She was on the floor, and there was so much blood.” Maren’s voice broke, and tears spilt down her cheeks.
“She was trying to crawl to the door, and when she saw me, she begged me to help her.”
Maren paused and sniffed back tears.
“I was so scared and wanted to run away, but then I saw someone coming from the other direction, holding a bouquet of what seemed to be flowers. I panicked and ran into the library, closing the door quietly.”
My heart was pounding so fast I was afraid it would jump out of my chest.
That maid Maren saw was me.
“T-This maid,” I started, swallowing hard.
“Did you see her face?”
She shook her head.
“I didn’t. She was too far away.”
I sighed in relief but didn’t let my guard down.
“What happened when you entered the library?”
“By that time, the princess was lying motionless on the ground. I thought she was dead, but when I moved closer, her eyes shifted, and she looked at me.”
My throat sealed shut.
The image of the princess I’d found — glassy-eyed, blood-soaked, motionless — merged with Maren’s description of a woman still clinging to life.
“She was trying to speak,” Maren continued, her words coming faster now, as though she needed to empty them before the weight crushed her.
“I had no choice but to kneel beside her and lean close. She could barely whisper. She was holding this book in her hand, and when I knelt beside her, she said, ‘Give this to my father. He’ll understand.’ And she pressed the book into my hands.”
Maren held up the leather-bound book.
I could see dry smears of blood on the cover.
“I think the princess tried to shift into her wolf,” Maren whispered.
“She did change — only halfway — and the wolf started dragging itself toward the door, but it crashed against a shelf, and then she changed back.” Maren pressed her hand to her mouth.
“I watched helplessly as she… died. She cried out for her mother.”
The library went silent between us.
I sat there, motionless, staring at Maren.
A dying princess, attempting one final transformation, failing, reverting to human form, and calling for her mother with her last breath.
It was the most heartbreaking thing I’d ever heard.
“I heard footsteps coming,” Maren continued after a moment, “and without thinking, I ran toward the book aisles and hid. Someone came into the library and called out, asking if anyone was there. When I peered from where I was hidden, I saw it was the maid with the flowers. When she discovered the princess, the bouquet slipped from her hands and crashed to the floor. Then she knelt beside the body and tried to wake her up.”
I could feel all the blood in my body rush to my head.
“Did you see her face?”
“Then the guards came and dragged her away, claiming she’d killed the princess. She was innocent. She didn’t kill her.”
I sat very still, processing everything.
I was not the only person who had witnessed Princess Esmira’s death.
Maren had seen the potential killer fleeing.
She had been with the princess in her final moments, and she was now holding the princess’s last will.
If Alpha King Eldric got that book, he would know his daughter had died, and whatever message Esmira had left for him would be enough to ignite a war.
“Why didn’t you come forward?” I asked.
“To save that innocent maid?”
Maren let out a hollow laugh.
“And say what? That I saw Lady Lysara — the beloved of the Alpha King — fleeing from a murder scene? That I’d been with the princess in her final moments? The truth is, I was so terrified I could barely breathe. Besides, I’m a temporary maid from a village no one has ever heard of. My word against a noble’s? They would have killed me just like that maid and called it justice.”
“They killed the maid?” I asked, my tone lowering.
“I think so.” She nodded.
“I finally made my way back to the servants’ quarters, and the next day, I heard the woman in charge of the décor complaining about sending a maid to the ballroom to drop off an arrangement of white lilies and how she never showed up. No one knew her name or could describe her face, and she’s been missing since then. She might be in the dungeons or even killed.”
“Oh,” I nodded, exhaling with quiet relief.
The palace thought I was dead or at least gone—another ghost swallowed by these walls.
“So what were you doing in the library today?” I asked.
“Running away,” she sighed.
“They’ve been asking questions, but no one will say what the questions are about. Lord Jon of House Sorvane sent his men yesterday to round up all the servants and maids from Ceranthia. They haven’t come back since, and there have been more interrogations. I’m a terrible liar, so I came to the library to hide.”
Silence settled between us before she continued.
“When I heard the royal wedding happened the next day with Esmira, I thought I’d imagined the whole thing. I thought maybe she’d survived and I’d dreamed the blood.”
She looked at me with exhausted eyes.
“But she didn’t survive, did she? Both she and that maid are gone, and I feel so guilty for not being able to help either of them.”
Maren’s face crumpled, and she pressed the book against her forehead, sobbing silently.
A dying woman’s final wish, entrusted to a servant girl who had no way to fulfil it.
I let her cry.
I didn’t rush to reassure her with empty words.
I simply sat beside her and waited, the way I wished someone had sat beside me in the clearing.
When the sobs finally subsided, she lifted her head and looked at me.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Really.”
I hesitated.
Lord Aven’s voice echoed in my head — the only thing standing between you and a shallow grave is my continued belief that you are useful.
If I told this girl the truth, I was handing her a weapon that could destroy me.
But she was holding a weapon capable of destroying all of us.
Trust had to start somewhere, and a half-truth was still a truth.