Chapter 3

Dante held the silver box, his knuckles white.

"What... what is this?"

The woman in the wheelchair looked up, her eyes swimming with tears. Her voice was a choked sob.

"It's my amulet."

All eyes turned to her.

"Three years ago, the treasury collapsed. The Council of Nobles tried to strip your title. They called you incompetent." She stared at Dante, her eyes shimmering. "Do you remember?"

Dante flinched.

"For seven days, you thought I was just sick." She wiped away a tear. "The truth is, I buried my Fae amulet—the one I've had since I was a child—at the bottom of this pool. I prayed to the Moon Goddess for seven days and seven nights. I prayed until I fell unconscious."

"The day I woke up, a massive grant from the Free Cities' Merchant Guild saved our treasury. It saved you. It saved the entire North."

The color drained from Dante's face. His eyes filled with guilt and heartache.

He rushed forward. Swept her out of the wheelchair and into his arms.

"I never... I never knew." His voice broke. "All these years, all the pain you endured. I never knew."

Isolde stood by, watching. She lifted her chin defiantly.

"See? My sister-in-law has been bleeding for this family, and Seraphina comes here cursing her to death!"

"Brother, are you still going to believe the ravings of this mad witch?"

Caelan and Finn stood frozen, their eyes full of conflict.

That silver box... it was definitely an old relic from Whisperwood. Only a master Fae artisan could carve those vines.

If she had a token like that, how could she be an impostor?

I rubbed the bone shards in my palm. My voice was cold.

"A dead object proves nothing."

"What?" Isolde stared at me in disbelief. "The box is right here. What more do you want?"

I ignored her. The guards stepped forward, ready to "escort" me from the cemetery.

But Dante held up a hand, stopping them.

"Wait." He looked at me, a flicker of doubt in his eyes. "Seraphina, what other proof do you need?"

The woman wiped her tears. She took an exquisite deck of fate cards from her lady-in-waiting.

"I know you don't believe me. So let me prove it with this."

Her voice had a grim, tragic certainty.

"My power of luck has never faded. You can try it."

Her hand trembled slightly as she turned over the first card.

The Crown.

The major arcana. A symbol of ultimate power and favor from fate.

Everyone gasped.

She turned the second card. The third. The fourth. The fifth.

All of them were cards of supreme good fortune. Not a single bad one.

That aura of luck... it was exactly like the Elara I remembered.

Caelan and Finn both sighed in relief. The tension finally left their faces.

"It really is Mother..." Finn muttered.

I stared at the five cards. The ice in my veins grew colder.

Luck can be faked. It can be stolen. It can be grafted.

But a soul... a soul can't lie to my bones.

I drew the silver dagger from my belt. Without hesitation, I sliced open my palm. I let the warm blood drip onto the bone fragments.

The massive drain of magic made me dizzy. I fought to stay upright, chanting in the Old Tongue.

"By ancient blood, I swear, tear through this mist of lies!"

The blood-soaked shards erupted with a dark light. A beam shot out, pointing straight at the chapel. At the long-abandoned building.

There was a dry holy well inside. Sealed for decades.

Dante's face was ashen. He stumbled towards the chapel, all noble decorum forgotten.

Guards followed, prying open the stone slab with iron bars and lowering a rope.

The digging took a full fifteen minutes.

When they pulled the rope up, it made a heavy, suffocating scraping sound.

A skeleton, caked in black mud, was hoisted up. It fell to the ground with a heavy thud.

On its right shoulder blade, there was a clear fracture. An unnatural shape. As if it had been deliberately smashed.

Dante fell to his knees in the mud. He was trembling, reaching out but not daring to touch the skeleton.

I stared at the skeleton. My brow furrowed.

The aura was wrong.

All wrong.

"Court Mage," I commanded. "Test the bones. Now."

An old man in mage robes hurried forward. He held his hands over the skeleton, channeling magic to examine it.

His hands began to shake. The more he tested, the more they shook.

After a moment, he snapped his head up. His face was white as a sheet. He could barely speak.

"This... based on the magical resonance and the bone structure... these are the remains of an adult male!"

The world went silent.

These weren't Elara's bones at all.