A Prince Tried to Expel His Half-Brother from a Royal Arts Competition, Not Knowing the Medallion Proved His True Bloodline
I stood in my small workshop, the air thick with the scent of pine and linseed oil. My hands moved over a half-finished sculpture, shaping the wood with an almost frantic energy. Sir Gideon’s cryptic warning still echoed in my mind, a low thrum beneath the hum of activity.
My mother’s faded sketch, depicting her pregnant beside the Old King and wearing the Vesper medallion, was tucked carefully back into her journal. It confirmed a terrifying truth. Prince Alaric’s arrogance, I now understood, was merely a veneer for a deeper, more profound fear.
A shadow fell across the doorway. I looked up, my tools momentarily still. A woman stood there, her posture erect, her gaze sharp and intelligent.
“Kaelen Finch?” she asked, her voice clear and carrying.
Her name was Lady Seraphina, the Royal Chronicler, and her reputation for meticulous research preceded her. She explained she was investigating irregularities in royal records, particularly vanished documents from Queen Isolde’s early regency. There had been an unusually large disbursement from the royal treasury just before the Queen Regent’s ascent.
“A discrepancy, you see,” she continued, “linked to a secret royal inventory signed by a humble artisan.”
My heart gave a sudden lurch in my chest.
“An artisan named Elara Finch,” Lady Seraphina added, her eyes narrowing slightly as she watched my face. “Your mother, I presume.”
The name hung in the air, a silent accusation. My mother’s legacy, one I had always cherished as honest and pure, now seemed entangled in a web of vanished records and large, suspicious payments. It was a cold, procedural kind of insult, the suggestion that her work was part of some murky financial maneuver, rather than recognized for its artistic merit.
I forced myself to remain calm. “My mother was a respected artisan.”
“Indeed,” Seraphina said, a flicker of something unreadable in her eyes. “Her name appeared on a document that officially disappeared shortly after Queen Isolde took the regency. Most peculiar.”
She paused, then her gaze dropped to my chest, where the Vesper medallion pressed against my tunic, hidden from casual sight.
“I’ve also heard whispers,” she said, her voice dropping slightly, “of certain unique artifacts linked to the Old King’s personal collection. Items of… unusual design. Is there, perhaps, anything of that nature you possess?”
Her question was pointed, yet carefully phrased. She clearly sensed a connection, though she hadn’t voiced the full, staggering implication. I knew she was circling the medallion, sensing its importance without fully grasping its royal origin or what it truly signified. The air crackled with unspoken possibility.
“My mother left me few things,” I replied, my voice measured. “Mostly her tools, her journals, and a small token of remembrance.”
I hesitated, wondering if this was the moment to reveal the medallion, to lay bare the truth I had only just begun to comprehend. My mother’s warning about keeping it hidden warred with Sir Gideon’s subtle guidance, his hint that Alaric feared a deeper secret. Seraphina seemed tenacious, but could I trust her? She was a Chronicler, a keeper of records, but also a figure beholden to the Court.
“A token?” Seraphina prompted, her gaze unwavering. “Sometimes the smallest tokens hold the greatest histories. Especially those that seem to… vanish from official accounts.”
Her words implied that even small, personal items, if connected to the royal court, could be deliberately erased. It suggested a ruthlessness that chilled me, an active effort to scrub away any trace of my mother’s presence. It was a subtle, institutional cruelty, implying her very existence was an inconvenient truth.
I considered her, then slowly reached beneath my tunic. My fingers closed around the smooth, cold metal of the medallion.
“It belonged to her,” I said, my voice quiet. “She called it her heart’s compass.”
I did not pull it out, not yet. I merely let my hand rest over it, a silent gesture. Seraphina’s eyes sharpened, detecting the subtle movement, the quiet defiance in my posture. She didn’t press, simply nodded, a thoughtful expression on her face.
“Interesting,” she murmured. “The records surrounding your mother’s brief association with the court are unusually sparse. Almost as if someone deliberately removed any detailed descriptions.”
This specific omission felt like a fresh wound. It wasn’t just that the accounts vanished; it was that her contributions were rendered invisible, reduced to a mere signature on a missing inventory. Her artistry, her very identity, had been swept aside.
“I am investigating a broader pattern of record suppression,” Seraphina explained, shifting her focus slightly. “Official histories can be… selectively edited. Especially regarding the transfer of power and royal patronage in the early days of Queen Isolde’s regency.”
She clarified that her initial investigation was not about uncovering a scandal involving my mother, but about a wider pattern of historical manipulation. The specific mention of Queen Isolde’s early regency, however, resonated with a chilling clarity. It suggested a motive, a period of vulnerability where truths could be conveniently buried.
“Your mother’s name is merely one thread in a larger tapestry of vanished information,” Seraphina assured me. “But sometimes, a single thread can unravel the entire design.”
She spoke with a quiet certainty that was both unsettling and strangely reassuring. She was not accusing my mother, but rather suggesting that my mother had been a casualty of a larger effort to control narratives. It gave me a flicker of hope that perhaps, through her, my mother’s real story could finally emerge.
“I simply seek the truth,” Seraphina said, her gaze steady. “For the Chronicles, and for posterity.”
I considered her words carefully. Her investigation, while ostensibly separate, was clearly converging on the same hidden truths that haunted my own past. She was looking for facts, for records, for the unvarnished history. This aligned with my own quiet quest for my mother’s honor and my true place.
“The Exhibition begins in three days,” I reminded her, a subtle way to gauge her priorities.
“Indeed,” she said, a small smile touching her lips. “And the Court of Starlight holds many secrets, both old and new. I intend to illuminate as many of them as I can.”
With that, she turned and departed, leaving me alone once more in the quiet workshop. Her words hung in the air like a challenge. I gripped the medallion beneath my tunic, the cold metal a stark reminder of the weight of my secret. Seraphina had seen a connection; now, I had to decide if she was an ally or merely another agent of the powerful court. My mother’s warnings were paramount, but Gideon’s advice, to heed the deeper fear, pushed me toward revealing more. The path forward was becoming clearer, and far more dangerous.
The silence of the workshop now felt heavier, imbued with the echoes of vanished histories and royal manipulations. My hands, once so steady, trembled slightly as I picked up my tools. My focus was no longer just on the sculpture; it was on the unfolding drama, the secrets that threatened to swallow me whole. My mother’s small token, once a simple comfort, now felt like a key, one I might soon have to turn. The risk was immense, but the opportunity to clear my mother’s name felt even greater. The quiet dignity of her memory demanded no less from me.
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