Chapter 4: Embers Beneath Marble
In the days that followed, the palace could not forget.
Whispers floated through the air like ash. Servants who once ignored me now bowed too quickly, their eyes filled with unease. Courtiers paused when I passed, offering shallow smiles and forced curtsies. Their polite greetings held both curiosity and caution. My half-siblings began watching me more closely, always from a distance, some with quiet confusion, others with thinly hidden hate.
I had become noticeable.
And in this world, being noticed could be dangerous.
Kael stayed by my side, silent and sharp, like a knife hidden beneath silk. He slept very little, ate even less, and moved through my chambers like a restless storm. Some nights I woke to find him sitting by the window, silver eyes glowing faintly under the moonlight. He never told me what he waited for, but his gaze searched the stars as if hoping to find a forgotten answer there.
He spoke nothing of his past.
But sometimes, I saw him draw strange shapes in the air. Symbols that vanished too quickly, numbers that didn't seem to belong in this time. Like echoes of something ancient calling back to him.
We were not like the others.
We were two secrets. Two strange truths the empire had tried to bury.
And I knew it would take all my strength to keep us from being buried again.
On the third morning, the imperial tutor arrived.
He was a tall, thin man with tired eyes and hands stained by ink. His gray robes were clean but worn, and his fingers curled around a scroll like it was a sword.
He bowed stiffly at the door."By the emperor's order, I have been asked to continue your education, Princess Aurelia. You have missed… many things."
I smiled politely and motioned to the desk near the window.
"Then let us begin."
He started with history. Names of long-dead kings. Endless battles. Treaties written in gold and broken with blood. I listened without interrupting, nodding at the expected times. But none of it mattered to me.
I didn't care about what they remembered.
I wanted to know what they were trying to forget.
"Tell me about the Silver War," I asked softly when he paused for a sip of tea.
The man blinked. "That war is not part of the approved lessons."
"But it happened, didn't it?"
His hand tightened around the cup.
"There are reasons why we do not speak of that time. It was a dark age—full of unnatural powers and forbidden studies. The people who chased that knowledge paid heavy prices."
"And what about the kings who made everyone forget?" I asked quietly.
He did not answer. But his silence said more than any words could.
Kael sat nearby on the windowsill, still and silent. He said nothing. But his eyes narrowed just slightly.
After the lesson ended, the tutor left in a hurry, his footsteps louder than they needed to be.
I turned to Kael."You knew about the Silver War."
There was a long pause.
Then he said, "I didn't live through it. But a part of me remembers."
"A part?"
"I'm not just Kael," he said, voice low and calm. "There are pieces of other things inside me. Old memories, old powers. I don't know what they are, or where they came from. But they're starting to wake up."
He placed a hand on his chest.
"I can feel them moving."
A cold shiver ran through me. Not from fear—but from something deeper.
Wonder.
Whatever Kael was, the palace had hidden him away for a reason. And now that I had set him free, the world was starting to remember what it had once feared.
That night, the air in my room felt different.
I had asked the maids to leave early, and most of the candles were already out. The room was quiet, lit only by the soft flicker of the last flame.
Kael rested on the couch, eyes closed. But I knew he wasn't asleep.
I sat at the edge of my desk, fingers tracing the edge of an old journal I had taken from the palace archives.
"I want to try something," I said suddenly.
He opened one eye. "Right now?"
"Yes."
I flipped open the journal. "Everyone here treats powers like a curse. But I think it follows rules like heat or wind or light. Cause, effect, reaction, balance. It isn't just chaos. It's a system."
Kael sat up slowly. His expression was hard to read, but I could see a spark of curiosity there.
"You want to study it?"
"I want to understand it. And you're the only person I've seen who holds it naturally."
He raised an eyebrow. "That sounds like a compliment."
"It is."
From a small drawer, I pulled out a broken shard of mana crystal. It had once been used by palace mages, but now it was dull and cracked. Most would call it useless.
"Touch it," I said.
Kael looked from me to the crystal, then slowly reached out and pressed his fingertip to the center.
Everything changed.
The candles dimmed.
The shadows on the walls stretched and trembled.
For a single heartbeat, the crystal came to life. Not with bright color, but with something deeper. It glowed with memory. With something ancient and sad.
I heard voices. Thousands of them. Whispering in languages I had never learned. Calling out names I had never spoken.
I pulled my hand back.
The light vanished. The room fell quiet again.
Kael looked at me. His face was calm, but I could see the tension in his jaw.
"You felt it," he said.
"I saw it," I whispered. "Not just light. I saw… something else."
I didn't have the words. A city made of silver and fire. A woman with silver eyes crying beneath a broken sky. A library burning. A child who had no name.
I turned to Kael.
"What are you?"
He looked down at his hand.
"I don't know," he said softly. "But I don't think I'm the only one like me."
We sat there in silence, the broken crystal between us.
Outside, thunder rumbled low across the sky.
Then came the rain.
Soft at first, then steady, like the sky had finally remembered how to weep.
That night, when sleep finally came, it brought strange dreams.
I saw stars fall like snow into rivers.
Machines that sang.
And blood that burned blue.
When I opened my eyes, Kael was gone.
But on the wall beside my bed, glowing faintly with silver light, was a strange symbol.
A spiral wrapped in flame.
Like a doorway.
A beginning.
And beneath it, written in a smooth hand that didn't belong to any human, were six words:
She opened the cage, not the chains.
The empire believed silence would protect them.
That forgetting would keep the fire away.
But fire never forgets the shape of the match.And beneath the marble, the embers dreamed.