Chapter 12.The person behind the memory

The voice came from somewhere behind me.

“You still haven’t remembered who pushed you.”

For a moment, I forgot how to breathe.

I turned slowly, searching the room for the person who had spoken, but there was no one there. The hidden chamber was exactly as we had left it: the old shelves covered in dust, the scattered papers on the wooden table, and the narrow passage disappearing into darkness behind us.

Adrian was already moving.

His hand went to the sword at his waist as he stepped between me and the doorway. His expression had changed completely. The uncertainty I had seen on his face earlier was gone, replaced by the alertness of someone who had spent years expecting an attack.

“Show yourself.”

His voice was low, controlled.

No answer came.

Richard moved closer to me. “Seraphina, stay behind us.”

I almost laughed at that.

After everything I had discovered tonight, being told to stay behind someone felt strangely familiar. Everyone seemed determined to protect me while keeping the truth just out of my reach.

“I heard him,” I said.

Adrian glanced at me. “So did I.”

The confirmation sent another wave of uneasiness through me.

At least I wasn't imagining it.

Adrian searched the room while Richard examined the passage we had entered through. I remained near the table, my eyes moving across the documents scattered over the surface. Victoria's handwriting appeared on several pages. Some of the ink had faded with age, but I could still make out pieces of sentences.

The Order.

The west balcony.

Memory instability.

And my name.

Again.

It seemed every road I followed eventually led back to the same place.

Me.

I picked up one of the papers.

“What did my mother know?”

Richard didn't answer immediately.

That hesitation told me more than his words could have.

“You knew she was investigating the Order,” I said.

“Yes.”

“You knew they were watching me.”

His jaw tightened.

“Yes.”

“And you never told me.”

Richard looked at me with an expression I couldn't quite read. There was guilt there, but something else sat beneath it. Fear, perhaps. The kind of fear that had been growing inside him for years.

“I was trying to keep you alive.”

“You kept me ignorant.”

“I kept you away from people who wanted you dead.”

I placed the paper back on the table.

“And did that work?”

He had no answer.

Adrian turned from the doorway. “We don't have time to argue about what happened years ago.”

I looked at him.

He continued, “Someone was inside this room before we arrived.”

Richard frowned. “How do you know?”

Adrian pointed toward the floor.

At first, I saw nothing.

Then I noticed the faint marks in the dust.

Footprints.

They led from the passage toward the far wall.

Someone had been here recently.

My stomach dropped.

“Could they still be here?”

Adrian drew his sword.

“We're going to find out.”

He moved toward the footprints, and Richard followed. I hesitated before going after them.

Something about those marks bothered me.

They were too clean.

Too deliberate.

Whoever had entered this room hadn't been trying to hide the fact that they were here.

It felt as if they wanted us to follow.

And somehow, I knew where the trail was leading before we reached the end of it.

The west wing.

The same part of the palace that had appeared in my memories.

The same place connected to the night I almost died.

We left the chamber through the narrow passage and emerged into an unused corridor. The air was colder here. Most of the candles had burned out, leaving only thin pools of light along the walls.

I walked beside Adrian while Richard followed behind us.

For several minutes, none of us spoke.

Then Adrian broke the silence.

“You don't have to go any farther.”

I glanced at him.

“Why?”

“Because if the person we're looking for is connected to what happened when you were eleven, this may bring back more than you're ready for.”

I almost smiled.

“Adrian, I think we're past the point where I'm allowed to be unprepared.”

His expression softened for a moment.

“You're still afraid.”

“I am.”

I didn't bother pretending otherwise.

“I just don't want fear deciding what happens to me anymore.”

He studied me for a moment before nodding.

“That sounds like you.”

The words caught me off guard.

“What does that mean?”

“You've changed.”

I looked away.

Maybe he was right.

Before I had arrived in this world, I had spent my life believing that if something scared me, I could simply walk away from it. Now I had discovered that the life I had inherited was built around secrets I couldn't escape.

The corridor ended at an old wooden door.

Richard stopped.

His face changed when he saw it.

“What is it?” I asked.

He didn't answer.

Adrian noticed.

“Richard?”

“My wife used to come here.”

I looked at the door again.

“Victoria?”

He nodded.

“She kept some of her private investigation records in this wing. I thought they had all been destroyed.”

Adrian pushed the door open.

The room beyond was small and almost completely empty. A desk stood against the wall, covered in dust. A broken chair lay beside it.

I stepped inside.

Something pulled at my memory.

Not a clear image.

Just a feeling.

The smell of rain.

A woman's perfume.

My mother's voice.

I reached toward the desk.

The moment my fingers touched its surface, the memory struck.

I was eleven.

Rain battered the windows so loudly that it sounded like stones being thrown against the glass.

My mother stood in front of me.

Her face was pale.

“Seraphina, listen to me.”

I remembered looking up at her, confused.

“What is wrong?”

She knelt in front of me and took both of my hands.

“You need to understand something before it is too late.”

“What?”

Her eyes filled with tears.

“You are not like everyone else.”

I remembered laughing because I didn't understand.

“Of course I'm not. I'm me.”

Victoria didn't smile.

“You are a key.”

The memory broke apart.

I pulled my hand away from the desk and stumbled backward.

Adrian caught my arm before I fell.

“Seraphina.”

I looked at him, breathing hard.

“My mother told me I was a key.”

Richard closed his eyes.

“You remember that?”

“You knew?”

His silence was enough.

“You knew she believed that.”

“Yes.”

The answer came quietly.

I stepped away from Adrian.

“How long?”

Richard looked toward the floor.

“Since before your accident.”

The room suddenly felt smaller.

“All these years, you've known.”

“I knew what your mother suspected. I didn't know whether she was right.”

“But you still let me believe my childhood accident was just an accident.”

Richard's voice broke slightly.

“You were eleven.”

“And now I'm old enough to hear the truth.”

He looked at me.

“You're right.”

Those two words hurt more than an argument would have.

I wanted him to defend himself. I wanted him to tell me there had been a good reason for every lie.

Instead, he simply stood there and accepted my anger.

Adrian moved toward the desk.

“There may be something else here.”

He pulled open one of the drawers.

Inside was a small bundle wrapped in faded cloth.

Richard immediately recognized it.

“Victoria's.”

He unfolded the cloth.

A journal fell into his hands.

I watched him open it.

The pages were filled with my mother's handwriting.

Some entries were ordinary. Names. Dates. Locations.

Others were different.

Urgent.

The Order believes certain souls can return when fate is disturbed.

Richard turned the page.

Another line had been underlined.

If Seraphina remembers her first death, they will come for her again.

My fingers went cold.

“They knew I could remember.”

“Victoria believed you could,” Richard corrected.

I looked at him.

“What's the difference?”

“Believing something and knowing it are not the same.”

Before I could respond, Adrian took the journal.

He read several pages in silence.

Then he stopped.

“What?”

He turned the journal toward us.

There was a drawing on the page.

A crescent.

Beneath it was a single sentence.

Do not let Seraphina return to the west balcony alone.

I stared at the words.

The west balcony.

The place where I had supposedly fallen.

The place that kept appearing in my memories.

My pulse began to race.

“I need to go there.”

Richard immediately shook his head.

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because Victoria specifically warned against it.”

“Which means there's something there.”

“Which means someone could be waiting for you.”

I looked at Adrian.

He didn't tell me no.

That surprised me.

“What do you think?”

His eyes remained on the page.

“I think your mother knew something was going to happen there.”

Richard stared at him.

“You're actually considering taking her?”

“I'm not taking her anywhere,” Adrian replied. “She has already decided.”

I almost smiled despite myself.

Richard didn't.

“This isn't a game.”

“I know.”

Adrian closed the journal.

“But keeping her away from the truth hasn't protected her so far.”

Richard's expression hardened.

“You don't understand what that place means.”

“Then explain it.”

Richard fell silent.

That silence made my decision for me.

I walked toward the door.

“I'm going.”

Neither man stopped me.

The three of us made our way through the west wing.

The farther we went, the stronger the feeling became.

I had been here before.

Not in this life.

Not exactly.

But somewhere inside me, the memory recognized every turn.

When we reached the final corridor, I stopped.

The balcony doors were ahead.

My hands began to tremble.

Adrian noticed.

“You don't have to force yourself.”

“I know.”

I reached for the handle.

“But I need to know.”

The door opened.

Cold air rushed over my face.

Rain had started again.

Not heavy this time.

Just enough to make the stone floor shine beneath the moonlight.

I stepped outside.

For several seconds, nothing happened.

Then I heard it.

A child's voice.

My own.

“Who are you?”

The world around me disappeared.

I was eleven again.

I stood near the railing, soaked from the rain.

Someone was behind me.

I couldn't see his face.

He wore dark clothing, almost black, with a silver clasp near his shoulder.

I remembered turning around.

“Why are you here?”

The man stepped closer.

“You shouldn't have remembered.”

I shook my head.

“Remembered what?”

His voice became colder.

“You were never meant to live long enough to remember.”

The memory shifted.

I saw the crescent on his hand.

Then I felt something strike my back.

My body went forward.

The railing vanished beneath me.

I fell.

I gasped and returned to the present.

Adrian caught me.

“Seraphina!”

I gripped his arm.

“He was here.”

“Who?”

“The man from the memory.”

Richard moved closer.

“What did you see?”

I looked toward the darkness beyond the balcony.

“He pushed me.”

The words felt strange coming from my mouth.

For years, everyone had called it a fall.

An accident.

A terrible childhood mistake.

But it hadn't been.

Someone had stood behind me.

Someone had decided that eleven-year-old Seraphina Vale needed to die.

And suddenly, I remembered something else.

A voice.

A name.

Not Adrian's.

Not Richard's.

Someone else's.

I tried to hold onto it, but the memory slipped away before I could catch it.

Then a man's voice came from behind us.

“You finally remembered.”

Adrian spun around, sword already drawn.

Richard stepped in front of me.

A figure stood at the entrance to the balcony.

He was dressed in dark clothing.

A silver clasp gleamed against his shoulder.

My breath caught.

It was him.

The same presence from my memory.

The same man.

Older now, but unmistakable.

He looked at me as though he had been waiting years for this moment.

“You really don't remember me?” he asked.

I couldn't answer.

There was something familiar about his face, but every time I tried to place it, my mind slipped away from the memory.

Adrian raised his sword.

“Who are you?”

The man ignored him.

His eyes remained fixed on me.

“You've spent so long believing you fell.”

My hands slowly curled into fists.

“What did you do to me?”

A faint smile appeared on his face.

“You didn't fall, Seraphina.”

He took one step forward.

“You were pushed.”

The words settled over the balcony like a death sentence.

I looked at Richard.

His face had gone completely pale.

Adrian's grip tightened around his sword.

And for the first time since waking inside this world, I understood something that frightened me more than the Order ever had.

The person who had pushed me eleven years ago wasn't a memory.

He was still alive.