Chapter 5: The Night They Forgot Me (5)

A narrow strip of the golden frame, low on the right side, had been scraped clean of gilt. Fresh scratches, bright against the old wood. I crouched in my ruined silver dress and leaned close.

There were letters carved beneath the gold. Small, careful, old.

Not a royal motto.

A name.

Mine.

"Mira Veyne."

The voice came from behind me.

I spun around so fast I nearly fell.

A man stood between the marble pillars at the edge of the moonlight. Tall, broad-shouldered, wrapped in a dark traveling coat spattered with mud. He wore no crest and no colors. As he stepped forward, the light caught the silver in his black hair.

Then it caught his face.

The scar. The grey eyes. The face from the portrait.

"No," I whispered.

"You're a difficult woman to find, Mira."

I looked from him to the painting and back again. Older, yes. Thinner. The lines around his mouth carved deeper. But the same.

"That's impossible," I said. "You're dead."

"So the court insists." His expression stayed grave. "I've heard 'impossible' rather often these past twenty years. One grows used to it."

Somewhere above us, a door banged open. Shouting. He glanced toward the staircase.

"We don't have much time."

"Who are you?"

He reached into his coat.

I scrambled backward until my shoulders hit the wall beneath his own portrait. "Don't come any closer."

He stopped at once and lifted his empty hand, palm out. Then, slowly, with the other, he drew out a small book bound in black leather. A silver emblem glinted on its cover: a crescent moon pierced by a quill.

I knew that emblem. Every archivist in the north knew it, the way priests know the names of lost saints.

The Lost Names Register. The ancient ledger said to record every wolf ever erased from royal history. It had supposedly burned with the old royal library a hundred years ago, and every copy with it.

"Where did you get that?" I breathed.

"From the people who destroyed the copies."

He opened it. The pages were thin as moth wings, almost translucent in the moonlight, and crowded with names in silver ink. Some had been crossed out. Some had been burned away so completely that only their impressions remained, like footprints in ash.

He turned to a page near the middle, held it where I could see, and pointed.

MIRA VEYNE.

In faded silver ink. And beside it, a date.

Twenty years ago.

I stared at it. My hands had begun to shake, and I couldn't make them stop.

"That can't be right. I was five years old."

"I know."

He turned the page.

A second entry bore my name. The ink was black, and still glossy. Wet enough to smear.

Tonight's date.

"Twice," I breathed.

"Someone has erased you twice," he said. "The first time, you were five. They made your family believe you had died. There was a funeral. A coffin." His jaw tightened. "I undid as much of it as I could. I gave you back to your mother, and her memories of you along with you. Most of them. But a wound like that always leaves a scar. She kept the grief. She simply forgot why she carried it."

My throat closed. All those nights behind closed doors. Some grief simply comes without a name.

"And tonight?"

"Tonight was done with older magic and a stronger hand. It didn't just take the memories I restored. It peeled them away and left the original lie underneath." His gaze held mine. "I can't undo it this time. I no longer have the power I once had."

"Then who can?"

He was quiet for a moment.

"Perhaps you."

"Me? I'm an archivist. I catalogue ledgers."

"Why do you think they erased you, Mira?" He closed the book. "Why a five-year-old girl? Why again tonight, on the eve of your crowning?"

"I don't know."

"Because the first time, you were too young to remember what you saw." His voice dropped. "And for the last three weeks, you've been beginning to remember."

The page with the scraped-out name. The dreams. The black candles. The voice counting backward.

I felt the blood drain from my face.

Above us, doors crashed open. Steel rang against stone. Boots filled the staircase, many of them, coming fast.

And a voice cut down through the dark, cold and unhurried, carrying perfectly down the stone throat of the stairwell.

"This is Kael Arden, First Blade of the High King. The palace is sealed. Every exit is covered." A pause, almost lazy. "Come out, Miss Veyne. Don't make me drag you."

My heart stopped.

He knew my name.

Every wolf in the Moon Hall had forgotten me. My mother. My brother. The man I was supposed to marry. And the High King's hunter knew my name.

Him, and the dead king standing in front of me. No one else in the entire world.

Elias's hand closed over mine. His palm was rough and very warm.

And inside me, Lyra, who had been silent and trembling since the bond tore, rose and lowered her head.

Not in submission.

In recognition.

The King, she whispered.

His grey eyes flashed silver in the dark.

"Come with me, Mira."

"Why should I trust you?"

He looked toward the stairs, where torchlight was already spilling down the steps. Then back at me.

"Because I was there," he said, "the night your mother buried you."