Chapter 13.The stranger who knew my name

The man stood beneath the archway as though the rain belonged to him.

For several seconds, none of us moved.

I could hear the rain tapping against the stone floor, the distant sound of thunder rolling somewhere beyond the palace walls, and my own uneven breathing. Everything else seemed strangely quiet.

Adrian kept his sword raised.

“Take another step,” he warned, “and you won't get the chance to explain yourself.”

The stranger's attention never left me.

That bothered me more than the sword pointed at him.

He wasn't afraid of Adrian.

He wasn't afraid of Richard.

He was looking at me as if I were the only person standing on that balcony.

I forced myself to speak.

“Who are you?”

A faint smile touched his lips.

“You really don't remember.”

There was something about the way he said it that made anger rise in me.

“I've already told you that.”

“No.” He tilted his head slightly. “You've told yourself that.”

Adrian shifted his stance.

“Enough.”

The stranger finally looked at him.

For the first time, I noticed something change in his expression.

Recognition.

Not surprise. Not fear.

Recognition.

“You're still protecting her,” he said.

Adrian's eyes narrowed.

“What does that mean?”

“It means you're repeating the same mistake.”

Richard stepped forward.

“Who sent you?”

The stranger gave a quiet laugh.

“Still asking the wrong questions, Richard.”

My father's face drained of color.

That reaction told me more than anything the stranger could have said.

“You know my father?” I asked.

The stranger looked at me again.

“I knew your mother.”

The words struck deeper than I expected.

“My mother?”

“Yes.”

Richard's voice hardened. “Don't involve Victoria in this.”

“She was involved long before any of you understood what was happening.”

I looked at my father.

“Dad?”

He didn't answer.

I hated that silence.

It had become the answer to too many questions.

I stepped away from Adrian and moved closer to the stranger.

Adrian immediately caught my wrist.

“Don't.”

I glanced down at his hand.

He released me after a moment, but his expression remained tense.

“Seraphina, you don't know who he is.”

“And apparently everyone else does.”

Richard closed his eyes briefly.

The stranger watched the exchange with an almost amused expression.

“You see?” he said. “Nothing has changed.”

“What hasn't changed?”

“The way they decide what you're allowed to know.”

My anger sharpened.

“You pushed me.”

His expression became still.

“I did.”

The admission made the world seem to tilt beneath my feet.

Richard took a step forward.

“Seraphina, don't listen to him.”

I turned toward my father.

“Why not?”

“Because he wants you confused.”

“I'm already confused.”

My voice broke before I could stop it.

“I've been confused since I woke up. I don't know why everyone keeps lying to me. I don't know why my mother thought I was a key. I don't know why the Order wants me. I don't know why Adrian was listed beside my name. And now the man who pushed me eleven years ago is standing in front of me telling me he knew my mother.”

The words came out faster than I intended.

“I think I've earned the right to hear the truth.”

Nobody answered.

The stranger's gaze softened.

For a brief moment, he looked almost sorry for me.

That frightened me more than his smile had.

“You haven't earned the truth,” he said quietly.

I frowned.

“What?”

“They're not ready to tell you.”

“Who?”

He looked past me toward Richard.

“Ask your father what happened after you woke up.”

Richard stiffened.

I turned to him.

“What happened?”

“Seraphina—”

“What happened?”

My father looked toward the floor.

“You were different.”

The words were barely audible.

I waited.

“When you woke up after the fall, you didn't remember us. You didn't remember your mother. You didn't remember me. You didn't even remember your own name.”

My throat tightened.

“I know that.”

“No,” Richard said. “You know what I told you.”

The stranger smiled.

“That is the difference.”

I looked between them.

Richard continued reluctantly.

“For several days after you woke, you wouldn't speak to anyone. The physicians thought the injury had affected your memory. Victoria believed there was something more.”

“What?”

“She believed someone had interfered with your memories.”

I felt cold despite the rain.

“Magic?”

Richard nodded.

“Something like it.”

The stranger interrupted.

“Not something like it.”

His voice had lost its amusement.

“Magic.”

Adrian lowered his sword slightly.

“What kind?”

The stranger looked at him.

“The kind that leaves a person alive while burying the part of them that knows the truth.”

I rubbed my arms.

The idea made my skin crawl.

“So someone erased my memories?”

“Not all of them.”

“Then why can't I remember?”

“Because your mind has been fighting to protect you.”

I shook my head.

“That doesn't make sense.”

“It will.”

He reached inside his coat.

Adrian immediately raised his sword again.

“Slowly.”

The stranger stopped.

He pulled out a small object and held it between two fingers.

A pendant.

Silver.

My name was engraved across the front.

I knew it immediately.

It was the same kind of pendant that had appeared before.

My eyes fixed on it.

“Where did you get that?”

The stranger didn't answer.

Instead, he walked toward the balcony railing and placed the pendant on the stone.

Adrian watched him carefully.

“What is that?”

The stranger looked at me.

“A reminder.”

“Of what?”

“Of the first time you died.”

My stomach turned.

I couldn't take my eyes away from the pendant.

I remembered another one.

The pendant Richard had told me about.

The one found near me after the fall.

The one bearing the Order's crescent.

Except this one was different.

There was no crescent.

Only my name.

“That's not the pendant they found after my accident,” I whispered.

“No.”

“Then whose is it?”

“Yours.”

I looked at him.

“I don't understand.”

“You weren't wearing it when you fell.”

He paused.

“You were wearing it before.”

Richard's face changed.

He knew.

“You knew about this?”

My father looked away.

The anger inside me became almost unbearable.

“Dad.”

He finally met my eyes.

“Your mother gave it to you.”

I stared at him.

“When?”

“On the night you fell.”

The rain seemed to grow louder.

My mind reached for the memory.

Nothing.

Only darkness.

Then something flashed.

A woman's hand.

My mother's fingers fastening a chain around my neck.

Her voice.

Whatever happens tonight, don't tell anyone about the room.

I gasped.

Adrian stepped closer.

“What did you remember?”

“My mother.”

Richard went completely still.

“What did she say?”

I closed my eyes, trying to hold onto the fragment.

“Something about a room.”

The stranger's expression changed.

For the first time, he looked genuinely concerned.

“What room?”

“I don't know.”

“Think.”

“I am thinking.”

My voice came out sharper than I intended.

The memory was slipping away.

I could feel it.

I reached for it desperately, but the harder I tried, the more distant it became.

“There was a door,” I whispered.

“What did it look like?”

“Black.”

Richard moved toward me.

“Seraphina, stop.”

I opened my eyes.

“Why?”

“Because forcing a memory can make it worse.”

The stranger gave him a cold look.

“She has been protected from the truth for eleven years. You think another warning will help?”

Richard ignored him.

“Seraphina, listen to me. Whatever you remember, don't trust every image.”

“Why?”

“Because memories can be altered.”

I looked at him.

“Then how am I supposed to know what is real?”

He didn't answer.

Adrian did.

“By finding evidence.”

I turned toward him.

He had lowered his sword.

His attention was fixed on the stranger.

“You've told us enough to prove you know about Seraphina's past,” Adrian said. “Now tell us why you're here.”

The stranger smiled faintly.

“I came because she remembered.”

“You could have stayed away.”

“I could have.”

“Then why didn't you?”

The stranger's eyes moved to me.

“Because the Order knows she remembered too.”

Silence followed.

My mouth went dry.

“How?”

“The moment she touched the dagger, they knew.”

Adrian's expression darkened.

“So the vision was a trigger.”

“Yes.”

Richard looked horrified.

“You're saying the Order has been waiting for her memory to return?”

“They have been waiting for the key to wake.”

I hated that word.

Key.

It made me feel less like a person and more like an object that everyone wanted to possess.

“What do they want from me?”

The stranger's face became unreadable.

“That depends on which part of the Order finds you first.”

Adrian stepped closer.

“And what happens if they do?”

“They will try to open what was sealed.”

“What was sealed?”

The stranger looked at me.

“Your first life.”

I frowned.

“My first life?”

He nodded.

“The life you had before Seraphina Vale.”

My breath caught.

He couldn't possibly know.

No one here should know about the woman I had been before waking in this world.

The traffic.

The rain.

My phone.

The novel.

My death.

Those memories belonged to me alone.

At least, I thought they did.

I looked at the stranger carefully.

“How do you know about that?”

His expression changed.

He didn't answer immediately.

That hesitation told me I had finally asked the right question.

“Who told you?”

He stepped closer.

“You did.”

I shook my head.

“No.”

“You just don't remember.”

Adrian moved between us.

“That's enough.”

The stranger looked at him.

“You should be more worried about yourself, Crown Prince.”

Adrian's expression remained cold.

“Why?”

“Because your name is on the same list as hers for a reason.”

The reminder sent a chill through me.

The parchment.

Our names together.

Fates altered.

Something connected us, whether either of us wanted it or not.

Adrian didn't move.

“What reason?”

The stranger smiled.

“That is something you will have to remember.”

A sharp sound came from the corridor behind us.

Everyone turned.

Footsteps.

More than one person.

Adrian immediately moved toward the doorway.

“Richard, get her inside.”

My father reached for my arm.

The stranger didn't move.

I looked at him.

“Who is coming?”

His eyes met mine.

“The people who should have killed you eleven years ago.”

My blood ran cold.

Adrian looked back at us.

“Seraphina, now.”

Richard pulled me toward the door.

I resisted for half a second.

“What about him?”

The stranger was already stepping backward into the darkness.

“You can't let him go!”

Adrian lunged forward.

The stranger threw something onto the floor.

A burst of silver light filled the balcony.

I covered my eyes.

When I looked again, he was gone.

Only the pendant remained on the stone.

Adrian rushed to the place where the man had disappeared, but there was nothing there except rain.

“He vanished,” Richard said.

Adrian bent down and picked up the pendant.

His fingers closed around it.

“Not vanished.”

He looked toward the dark corridor.

“He had a way out.”

Another sound came from the passage.

Closer this time.

Adrian's expression hardened.

“We need to leave.”

Richard didn't argue.

He pulled me toward the inner corridor while Adrian stayed behind us, sword drawn.

I kept thinking about the pendant in his hand.

My mother's voice.

The black door.

The room I couldn't remember.

And the stranger's final words.

The people who should have killed you eleven years ago.

I had spent so long believing my first death was the beginning of my second life.

Now I was beginning to wonder if the opposite was true.

Maybe the life I remembered as my first had been connected to this world long before I ever opened that novel.

Maybe I hadn't entered the story by accident.

And if the stranger was telling the truth, someone had known exactly who I was before I ever knew their name.

We reached the end of the corridor when Adrian suddenly stopped.

He looked down at the pendant.

There was something engraved on its back.

His expression changed.

“What is it?” I asked.

He didn't answer.

I stepped closer.

“Adrian?”

He turned the pendant around.

I saw the inscription.

It wasn't a name.

It was a date.

The date of my accident.

Beneath it were four words.

THE SECOND LIFE BEGINS TONIGHT.

My stomach dropped.

I looked at Richard.

He was staring at the pendant as though he'd seen a ghost.

Then Adrian whispered something that made the fear inside me deepen.

“This date is tomorrow.”

I looked toward the dark corridor behind us.

Somewhere in the palace, someone had been waiting for tomorrow.

And now I understood why the Order had started moving.

They weren't trying to prevent my memories from returning anymore.

They were preparing for whatever was supposed to happen after I remembered.