Chapter 10 - The Missing Twin
No one spoke for several seconds.
The forest, the lake, the guards, and even the wind seemed to wait for the king’s response.
Aldric took the portrait from the child’s hands. His fingers trembled so violently that Halven reached out to steady them.
“There were two,” the king whispered.
Doctor Halven nodded. “Twins.”
“Why did you never tell me?”
“I was told the second child had died before dawn.”
“By whom?”
Halven looked at Maribel.
The queen’s eyes had fixed on the portrait. “I did not know she lived.”
Varron laughed from his place beside the soldiers. “That is not true.”
Rovan drew his sword. “You will speak only when ordered.”
“The truth is not made less useful because you dislike the speaker.”
Elara took the portrait. The two infants were nearly identical, but one wore a small red ribbon around her wrist. The other wore a blue ribbon.
“Which one am I?” she asked.
Halven studied the marks. “The red ribbon was tied to Seraphine. The blue ribbon to Solenne.”
Elara looked at the faded red ribbon attached to her locket.
“Then I am Seraphine.”
“Yes,” the physician said.
The silent seven-year-old girl stared at the portrait.
She had a narrow face, dark eyes, and a reddish mark beneath her throat.
Elara saw it at once.
The girl was Solenne.
“How old is she?” Elara asked.
“Seven,” Tessa replied. “Her name at the orphanage was Lysa.”
The child backed away.
Elara knelt before her. “Lysa?”
The girl nodded.
“Do you remember where you came from?”
Lysa shook her head.
Varron’s smile faded.
Maribel stepped toward the child, but Lysa hid behind Elara.
“Do not touch her,” Elara said.
The queen stopped.
“I would never hurt her.”
“You hurt me.”
Maribel absorbed the words without protest.
King Aldric knelt slowly. Lysa watched him with suspicion.
“Your name is Solenne,” he said. “You are my daughter.”
The girl did not understand. She looked at Elara.
“Is he telling the truth?”
Elara did not want to promise what she could not yet prove. She glanced toward Halven.
The physician took a small silver instrument from his bag. “The mark is proof of bloodline, but we can perform the royal test.”
“Here?” Rovan asked.
“It requires only a drop of blood from both children and the king.”
The test was performed in a small tent beside the lake. Halven mixed the blood into a bowl of clear water with ground moonstone. According to the old royal practice, the water would turn gold if the line was genuine.
Elara expected nothing. She had learned to distrust symbols, stories, and objects that promised certainty.
Halven pricked her finger first.
A single red drop fell into the water.
The surface shimmered gold.
Then came Lysa’s blood.
The water turned gold again.
When Aldric’s blood joined the mixture, the bowl began to glow.
The king covered his face.
Rovan bowed his head.
Tomas stood near the tent, watching silently.
Elara placed a hand on Lysa’s shoulder.
The child leaned against her.
“She is my sister,” Elara said.
Halven nodded. “Princess Solenne.”
Maribel remained outside the tent. She looked older than she had that morning.
Varron was not watching the children. He was watching the road.
Rovan noticed. “What are you expecting?”
“The court.”
“They are in the palace.”
“Not all of them.”
Before the captain could ask more, a horn sounded from the forest.
Three riders appeared on the road, carrying the banner of the eastern guilds. Behind them came dozens of mounted men.
“They found us,” Rovan said.
The soldiers formed a line. Aldric sent Elara, Lysa, and Tomas toward the summer house ruins, but the road behind them was already blocked.
Maribel stepped forward. “Varron called them.”
The chancellor smiled. “I promised them a kingdom without an old king and his impossible daughters.”
“You promised them the crown,” Aldric said.
“I promised them stability.”
The first arrows flew.
Rovan ordered the children into the forest. Elara pulled Lysa along while Tomas ran beside them. They hid behind a fallen tree as the soldiers fought near the shore.
“Where are we going?” Tomas asked.
“The summer house.”
“It is burning.”
“There is another entrance beneath it.”
Maribel had told Elara the documents were hidden beneath the floor. If the house collapsed, the secret passage might be sealed forever.
They reached the ruins. Smoke filled the rooms, but a section of stone floor remained intact. Elara searched beneath the blackened boards until she found a brass ring.
The trapdoor opened.
“Go,” she ordered the children.
They descended into a narrow tunnel. Behind them, a soldier shouted.
Elara pulled the trapdoor closed just as a blade struck the wood.
The tunnel led beneath the lake and toward the old bell tower. Water seeped through the walls. Lysa clung to Elara’s hand.
“I am scared,” the little girl said.
“So am I.”
“But you keep going.”
“You can keep going while scared.”
The tunnel opened into a chamber beneath the shore. A stone staircase climbed toward daylight. At the top, they found a hidden room filled with maps and weapons.
Darius Venn had used it as a refuge.
On the wall hung a portrait of a young man holding a small boy.
Tomas rushed toward it.
“My father.”
Beneath the portrait lay a journal.
Elara opened it. The final entry had been written eighteen years earlier.
I could not return for Tomas. The queen’s men found the southern trail. I carried Seraphine to Mara and sent the child toward the mountain village. Before I died, I learned Solenne was alive. A servant named Orla took her from the palace and promised to hide her among the orphaned children. If the girls are ever reunited, tell them their father chose them both.
Tomas’s hand covered his mouth.
“He did not abandon me.”
“No,” Elara said. “He protected you.”
A sound echoed from the tunnel.
Someone was approaching.
Elara extinguished the lamp. She pushed the children behind a stack of crates and held the locket in her fist.
The door opened.
A soldier entered, carrying a torch.
He wore no guild colors. His face was hidden beneath a hood.
Elara stepped into the light. “Who are you?”
The man lowered his hood.
He was older, with a scar beside his mouth.
Elara knew him from her memory.
Darius Venn was alive.
He looked at the locket, then at the mark beneath her throat.
“My little sun,” he whispered.
Behind Elara, Tomas began to cry.
Darius dropped to his knees.
“My son.”
Tomas did not run to him. He stood with his fists closed, as though eighteen years of questions had become too heavy to put down.
“Say my name,” the boy demanded.
Darius’s voice broke. “Tomas Venn.”
“Say what you did.”
“I carried Princess Seraphine away from the palace. I trusted Mara with her. I went back for you, but Varron’s men captured me.”
“Why did you not come sooner?”
“Because I was chained in a prison I could not escape. Then, when I returned, the queen’s men told me you had died.”
Tomas looked at Elara. “Everyone was told someone had died.”
“That was how they erased us,” she said.
Darius moved closer, but he did not force the boy to accept him. “You do not have to forgive me today.”
Tomas’s anger wavered. “I do not know how.”
“Neither do I.”
The answer made Tomas look at him for the first time as a father rather than a stranger.
Then Varron entered, and the fragile moment broke.
But before he could reach him, a second figure entered behind Darius.
Chancellor Varron raised a sword.
The torchlight caught the edge of the blade. Elara recognized the weapon from the royal armory; its guard carried the same crescent mark as Maribel’s broken chain.
“You planned this,” she said.
Varron’s smile returned. “I planned every road that brought you here.”
“You wanted the journal.”
“I wanted the names inside it. Without those names, the court can pretend I acted alone.”
Darius shifted between Varron and the children. “You did act alone.”
“No one acts alone in a kingdom. They act through people who are frightened, ambitious, or tired.”
Elara looked at Maribel’s stories, the king’s regret, and Halven’s silence. Varron had not created their weaknesses. He had simply learned how to use them.
She closed her hand around the locket.
“Then today you will learn what happens when frightened people stand together.”
“How touching,” he said. “Now all the lost children are together.”
Lysa stepped closer to Elara. Tomas moved to her other side. The three children formed a small line before the chancellor, their fear visible but their feet planted.
Varron studied them with irritation. He had expected frightened children to scatter. He had not expected them to become a family in front of him.
May you like
“You cannot protect them forever,” he said.
Elara lifted the journal. “We do not have to. We only have to protect them long enough for the truth to reach the king.”
