All Chapters of What Was Never Mine: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

The carnival came to us as though the world itself had decided to be kind.I remember thinking, as we crossed the final hill and the lights first appeared below, that I had never seen so many colors gathered in one place. Lanterns hung from poles and wagon wheels, glowing amber and rose and soft gold, swaying gently in the evening breeze. Music drifted upward—fiddles and flutes and drums beating a rhythm that felt older than the road beneath our feet. Laughter followed it, bright and unrestrained, the kind of sound that belonged to people who believed themselves unseen.Masks were everywhere.Silk and velvet, painted porcelain and carved wood, feathers and ribbons and glimmering thread. Faces hidden just enough to loosen the world’s grip on propriety. I tied mine on with hands that trembled—not from fear, but from the thrill of stepping into a version of myself that did not bow or avert her gaze. When I turned to him, I hardly recognized the man beneath the dark half-mask.Not the cro

It was three nights before I saw him again.Three nights since the willow and the moss and the world that had existed only for us.The castle swallowed us whole the moment we returned. Duties reclaimed me without ceremony. Roman was summoned to council, to training yards, to audiences that stretched long into the evening. We did not seek each other at once — whether from caution or the unspoken need to steady ourselves, I cannot say.I only know that I felt his absence like a bruise.The first night, I lay awake in the attic chamber assigned to me, staring at the sloped ceiling, replaying the feel of his hands, the weight of him, the way his voice had softened when he said my name as though it belonged to him alone. My body remembered what my pride would not allow me to dwell upon. I pressed my thighs together in the dark and scolded myself for it.The second night, I convinced myself I had imagined half of it. The castle had a way of reducing miracles to foolishness. By candlelight,

The Princess arrived without warning.There were no trumpets in the courtyard, no rustle of silk along the corridors announcing her approach, no flurry of maids whispering themselves hoarse in anticipation. I was alone in the eastern guest chamber, airing linens and smoothing the coverlet with hands that already knew the shape of the bed, the way one comes to know a room through repetition rather than ownership. The windows were open to the morning, pale light slanting across the floor, and I had just lifted a vase to change the water when I felt it—an awareness, sudden and sharp, like the air before a storm.Someone was behind me.I turned too quickly, the water sloshing over the rim and onto my fingers, and for one frozen moment my mind refused to give her form. She stood just inside the doorway, unannounced and utterly still, as though she had always been there and I was only now permitted to see her. She was younger than I had imagined, or perhaps simply softer—golden hair pinned

I nearly ran through the corridor.Not decorous. Not proper. Certainly not befitting a maid newly appointed to attend a princess.But I could not breathe.Eleanor’s voice still echoed in my mind — calm, measured, and entirely too perceptive. The way she had watched me. The way she had chosen me.Of all the maids in Hawthorne, she had chosen me.The thought pressed against my ribs as I slipped down the servants’ staircase and into the quieter eastern passage, praying no one would stop me, no one would call my name and demand composure I no longer possessed. My skirts brushed the stone too loudly, my pulse thrummed in my ears, and every shadow felt as though it watched me pass.I needed him.The conservatory door yielded beneath my hand with its familiar creak. Ivy-shadow and fading light wrapped around me, cool and secretive, and there — already turning at the sound of my breathless entrance — stood Roman.Concern sharpened his expression instantly. “Edith?”I closed the door behind me

The doors had not yet opened.That was the strange thing about it — how everything paused in that narrow space between announcement and entrance, as though even the castle were holding its breath. Princess Elanor stood beside me, hands folded neatly at her waist, her chin lifted in practiced composure. From the Great Hall beyond the doors came the muffled sound of voices and clinking glass, the living pulse of an evening already in motion.For the first time since I had known her, she shifted.It was small — a subtle flex of her fingers against the silk of her gloves, a breath drawn a little deeper than necessary — but I saw it. I always noticed the things others missed. Her gaze flicked once to the doors, then away, and for a fleeting moment the careful polish slipped just enough to reveal something softer beneath it.Nervousness.Not fear. Not doubt. Simply the quiet weight of being seen.“You will walk half a step behind me,” she said softly, not looking at me as she spoke. “If I f