The Archduke

Three days after the crypt, Ilyra went back.

She could not help herself. The memories would not settle. She had spent the days claiming illness, avoiding everyone. Every time she closed her eyes, she felt the weight of darkness pressing against her skin, heard the echo of a voice hoarse from centuries of silence. She had done something. She was almost certain she had done something. But the details kept slipping away, dissolving like frost in sunlight, leaving only fragments: the texture of ancient stone, the cold that was not temperature, the words she had spoken that felt too large for her mouth.

She had to know.

The upper crypt was as she remembered. Marble tombs rising pale in the torchlight. Golden crowns resting on carved brows. The weight of ceremony and history pressing down. Her grandfather’s tomb. The infant twins who had died before she was born. The accumulated dead of her family, row upon solemn row.

She walked to the far end, where the formal monuments gave way to rougher stone. The passage. She remembered exactly where it was, the gap in the rubble barely wide enough for a child.

She couldn’t find it.

Stone. Only stone. No gap. No passage leading deeper.

She stared at the wall. Her candle cast jumping shadows across it. She remembered crawling through here. She remembered the texture of ancient rock beneath her palms, the way the air had grown thin and cold, the sealed door with its rusted sigils.

She remembered.

But the passage was gone now. Had it disappeared behind her? Had something, someone, sealed it after she left?

Her hand found the cut on her finger. Small. Still healing. Real.

She had not imagined the cut. She had not imagined the knife, the blood falling on stone, the words she had spoken in the dark. Those memories were too specific, too visceral, too unlike the vague shapes of ordinary dreams.

But if it was real, if she had truly bargained with something beneath the palace, then it was sealed now. Whatever she had woken, whatever she had bound herself to, it was trapped behind tons of stone. Or maybe it really was just a dream. It could not reach her. Dreams cannot follow to the waking world.

She pressed her palm against the cold stone and felt nothing. No pulse of ancient power. No whisper of a watching presence. Just rock.

Perhaps that was what mattered. Whatever had happened that night, it was over. Sealed. Buried. She had done something reckless and desperate and strange, and then she had walked away, and now there was a wall of stone between her and her mistake.

She could live with that. She could tell herself she had escaped.

She laughed, alone in the dark among her ancestors. The sound came out shaky, strange in that still air. Relief, mostly. And beneath it, a small cold place she did not examine, a splinter of knowledge she was already learning to ignore.

She returned to the palace feeling lighter than she had in days.

Whatever had happened, it was gone now. Whatever she had promised, it could not be collected. She was safe. She was still herself. The nightmare was over.

But the dreams did not stop.

Days blurred together. She avoided the library wing as if held a terrible secret. She claimed headaches to miss meals. And yet, time heals all wounds, and the memory receded like a nightmare shaken off. Though the dreams… the dreams stayed.

Two weeks later, Ilyra still woke in the grey light before dawn, her heart beating too fast, the echo of a voice fading from her ears. Hoarse. Ancient. Amused. The same dream, night after night, no matter how firmly she told herself the crypt was sealed, the passage collapsed, the thing beneath the palace trapped forever.

Dreams were only dreams. She told herself this every morning now, lying in her cold bed, staring at the canopy above. Dreams meant nothing. The mind invented things. Grief and desperation could leave marks that took time to fade.

She sat up and examined her hand.

The cut had almost healed, only a thin pink line now, barely visible in the dim light. A small thing. She had caught it on something in the library, surely. The old books had rough bindings. Cracked leather. Sharp edges. That was all. That was obviously all.

When Mira brought her breakfast, the maid paused at the door. She looked worse than Ilyra felt - thin, with dark circles carved beneath her eyes, her hands not quite steady on the tray.

“You’ve been restless, my Lady.” Mira’s voice was careful. “The servants talk.”

“Just dreams.” Ilyra watched the woman set down the tray. “Nothing to concern yourself with.”

Mira arranged the tea things. Her movements were practiced, automatic, the gestures of someone who had learned to keep working while something inside her was breaking. She had not mentioned her brother since that first morning.

“Your colour is better this morning.” Mira’s voice wavered, recovered. “Will you attend-” She stopped. Swallowed. “Will you be at court today, my Lady?”

Ilyra studied her. This woman who had lost someone to the very violence Ilyra had failed to prevent. This woman who still brought her breakfast, still arranged her tea, still asked about court as if the world had not cracked open and swallowed someone she loved.

“How are you, Mira?” The question came out before she could stop it. “Truly.”

Something flickered across the maid’s face. Surprise, perhaps. Or the particular wariness of a woman who had learned not to expect kindness from nobility.

“I am well, my Lady.” The words were flat. Final. A door closing.

Ilyra let it close. She had no right to push. She had done nothing to earn that trust.

“I suppose I must attend court,” she said instead. “There’s a foreign dignitary, I’m told.”

“An archduke from Esthold.” Mira’s voice steadied, grateful for safer ground. “The court is buzzing.”

Ilyra looked at her own reflection in the mirror. Pale. Tired. Unchanged. If she had truly bargained with something in the dark, would she not look different? Would she not feel the weight of it every moment?

She felt nothing but relief. And the dreams. But dreams were only dreams.

Foreign dignitaries came and went. They paid their respects to the throne, made their trade agreements, admired the palace, and departed. She could not imagine why this one should be different.

Court was in session when she arrived, taking her customary place near the back of the great hall. Her siblings were arrayed near the throne in their usual constellation of influence. Alistair in military dress, his sword worn even in the palace, his expression watchful. Seraine in religious finery, pearls gleaming against dark fabric, her lips moving in what might have been prayer or calculation. The twins, Dorian and Cassian, standing together as always, whispering comments that made each other smile.

Her parents sat the throne. Her father, passive as always, his eyes focused on something in the middle distance. Her mother, sharp-eyed, scanning the room with the predatory attention that had kept her on that seat for thirty years.

Ilyra was not called upon. She was never called upon. She stood and watched and faded into the tapestries.

A herald stepped forward, his staff striking the floor three times.

“Your Imperial Majesties. Lords and ladies of the court. His Grace Evander Corvin, Archduke of Esthold, pays his respects to the Crown.”

Murmurs rippled through the assembled nobles. Esthold was distant. Wealthy. Mysterious. Few had dealings with its ruling family. Fewer still had met them. The name conjured images of dark forests and ancient holdings, wealth that predated the empire itself.

The doors at the far end of the hall opened.

He entered.

Ilyra’s first sight of him: dark hair, thick and slightly wavy, worn longer than strictly practical and swept back from his face in a manner fashionable but unforced. A neatly kept moustache and short beard framed his mouth and chin, lending him a mature, aristocratic gravity. His features were angular rather than soft, with a long nose and dark eyes that seemed to absorb the light rather than reflect it. He moved as if he owned every room he entered, each step measured and certain, weight always centred, never off-balance - the build of a man who had once been a soldier but had not seen the field in a long time. His clothes were expensive but understated: a dark frock coat that emphasised his shoulders, a cravat tied with careless precision, the cut almost in local fashion but not quite, suggesting at styles she had seen only in old portraits.

He was handsome. That was her first thought, arriving before she could stop it. The way his hands moved when he gestured: long fingers, precise movements, the hands of someone who knew exactly what they were doing.

She looked away. Looked back. Told herself she was simply assessing a foreign dignitary, the way anyone would.

His smile was too perfect. His movements too precise. The court favourites preened and posed. This man simply was, with a certainty that felt grander than the palace itself. There was something different about him. Nothing obvious. Nothing she could name.

She was being fanciful. He was just a foreign archduke with good tailors and excellent posture. Nothing more. The strange awareness prickling along her skin was just the novelty of a new face at court.

He bowed before the throne with perfect courtesy. When he rose, his gaze swept the room.

For a moment, barely a heartbeat, his eyes met Ilyra’s.

She looked away first, too quickly, she realised, like a servant caught staring. When she dared glance back, he had already moved on, his attention on her mother, and the court continued its formal dance.

She did not understand the flush. She was not some blushing debutante. She had seen handsome men before. This was nothing.

Her mother was speaking, her voice carrying the practiced warmth of royal hospitality. The Empress invited the Archduke to remain for the winter season. He accepted with gracious words and another elegant bow. Trade negotiations were mentioned. Cultural exchange. The strengthening of ties between distant realms.

“Provincial,” Dorian murmured, just loud enough to carry. “Archduke of forests and peasants.”

Cassian laughed softly. Seraine sniffed.

But Alistair watched the newcomer with the assessing gaze of a commander. “He moves like a soldier,” he said to no one in particular. “Look at his feet.”

Ilyra looked. She did not know enough of combat to understand what her brother saw, but she noticed that the Archduke’s steps were deliberate, balanced, never crossing or tangling. The walk of a man who was always ready to move in any direction. She noticed, too, the way his coat moved across his shoulders. The way he held himself.

She was staring again.

Her pulse quickened. The crowd, she told herself. The press of bodies, the stuffiness of the hall, the unexpected disruption to her routine. Certainly not. No. She was being absurd.

The reception that afternoon gathered the court in the amber salon, where the early winter light fell through tall windows and servants circulated with wine and delicate pastries. The Archduke stood at the room’s centre, surrounded by her siblings.

Cassian was asking about Esthold’s theatre. Did they have performance houses? What manner of plays did they favour? The Archduke answered easily, his voice warm and pleasant. He spoke of travelling players and seasonal festivals, of masques performed in the great hall of his estate, of a fondness for tragedy that drew appreciative nods from Cassian.

Seraine inquired about temples. What gods did Esthold honour? The Archduke navigated this with diplomatic care, speaking of old traditions and newer observances, of respect for the divine without commitment to any particular form. Seraine seemed satisfied, or at least not offended.

Dorian challenged him to a game of cards. The Archduke declined with a smile that somehow made Dorian laugh instead of bristle. “I am perhaps too weary from travel to do the game justice,” he said. “But I would be honoured to accept another time, when I might lose more gracefully.”

Alistair asked pointed questions about Esthold’s military capacity. How many soldiers could be raised? What manner of fortifications defended the borders? The Archduke answered with just enough detail to seem forthcoming, just enough vagueness to reveal nothing of substance. A masterful performance.

Ilyra stood at the edge of the gathering, invisible as always. Around her, ladies in gowns with enormous puffed sleeves and tightly cinched waists moved like silk bells through the room. No one introduced her. No one needed to. She was the youngest, the sickly one, the reader of dusty books. Her place in the family was fixed: present but unnecessary. Furniture.

A servant passed with a tray of wine. She took a glass, not because she wanted it but because it gave her hands something to do. The wine was the good vintage, golden and fragrant, reserved for important guests. She sipped it without tasting.

Around her, the court swirled in its familiar patterns. Ladies in their wide bell skirts clustering in knots of silk and whispered gossip, sleeves brushing sleeves as they leaned close. Lords positioning themselves near whichever sibling seemed most ascendant that week. The endless, exhausting dance of favour and influence that she had never learned to join.

She watched him handle her siblings with the skill of a master musician playing a familiar instrument. Each response tuned precisely to its recipient. Each smile calibrated. He gave Cassian artistic appreciation, Seraine religious respect, Dorian amused deference, Alistair military candour.

She found herself watching his hands as he gestured. The way his voice carried, warm and unhurried, even across the crowded room. The line of his throat above his cravat when he laughed at something Dorian said.

She was assessing a potential threat. That was all. Understanding a new player at court.

And then, across the room, he caught her watching.

He did not smile. He tilted his head slightly, as if acknowledging a fellow observer. As if they shared some understanding that the performance was, after all, only a performance.

Her heartbeat stumbled.

The wine. She had drunk too quickly on an empty stomach. Or the surprise of being seen, yes, that was it. She was not accustomed to being noticed.

She looked away, fingers tightening on her glass.

The crowd shifted. Someone jostled her elbow, not even offering apology. She had been standing in the way, invisible, unimportant, an obstacle to be brushed aside.

She had seen enough.

She slipped away to the library. Her sanctuary. The old books and the silence and the dust that no one ever disturbed.

The old library was unchanged. The agricultural reports sat on the reading table, as before. The forbidden book still hidden beneath them.

She settled into her customary chair, a candle flickering beside her, and tried to read. A treatise on taxation reform. Dry, practical, exactly what she needed to occupy her thoughts.

Her mind kept drifting.

The way he had acknowledged her across the room. As if she were worth acknowledging.

Footsteps in the corridor. She looked up.

He stood in the doorway.

For a moment, surprise stilled her. How had he found her here? This wing of the palace was deserted. No one came to these old rooms. No one remembered they existed.

“Forgive the intrusion.” His voice was different here. Lower, more intimate without the crowd to project over. Something in her stomach tightened. “I was told the palace held a remarkable collection of old histories. I did not expect to find the collection had a guardian.”

She stood, smoothing her skirts. A foreign archduke. She should curtsy. She should call for a chaperone. She should not be standing alone in a dusty library with a stranger.

She hesitated. The corridor behind him was empty. No one had seen him enter. She could simply… but no. That way lay scandal.

“Mira.” She raised her voice, pitched to carry. “Mira, I require you.”

A pause. Then footsteps in the corridor, quick and light. Mira appeared in the doorway, slightly breathless, her gaze moving from Ilyra to the archduke and back again. Whatever she saw in their careful distance from each other, whatever she thought of finding her mistress alone with a foreign noble, she kept it from her face.

“My Lady?”

“Tea, please. And you may remain.”

Mira curtsied and withdrew to arrange the tray that sat on a side table, her movements quiet, her presence rendering the impropriety merely unconventional. A princess receiving a guest in her private library, attended by her maid. Unusual, but not scandalous.

Ilyra turned back to the archduke.

“My lord.” She inclined her head, formal. “The library is open to guests, of course. Though most find it… less interesting than advertised.”

“Most do not know what to look for.”

He did not approach. Instead, he studied the shelves with what seemed like genuine interest, running his fingers along the spines of volumes that had not been touched in decades. His touch was careful, almost reverent. She watched his hands move, those long fingers, so precise, and caught herself. Looked away. Looked back.

“The Chronicle of Empress Valeria,” he said, reading a spine. “Histories of the Founding Wars. A Discourse on Provincial Governance.” He pulled the last from the shelf, handling it with the ease of someone familiar with fragile old books, and moved closer to examine it in the candlelight.

Closer to her.

She became acutely aware of the small space. The reading table between them was not much of a barrier. The warmth of the single candle. The way his presence seemed to fill the room.

“Someone has been reading this recently,” he said. “The spine is looser than the others.”

She stepped back. A small movement, instinctive. If he noticed, he gave no sign.

“I find governance… interesting.” Her voice came out steadier than she felt.

“Do you?” He turned, and she saw curiosity in his expression. Interest. “Most princesses prefer poetry. Romances. Tales of distant lands.”

“Most princesses are not the fifth in line with no prospect of influence.” The words came out sharper than she intended. She caught herself. “Forgive me. That was inappropriate.”

“It was honest.” He set the book on the reading table, beside her abandoned treatise on taxation. When he looked up, he was smiling. Not the diplomatic smile from the throne room, but something smaller, more genuine. “Do you know, I have spent three hours today discussing the weather with your sister’s ladies-in-waiting? The weather. As if I had crossed half a continent to learn that winter is cold.” He leaned against the reading table, and for a moment he seemed almost casual. Almost approachable. “Honesty is rare at court. I find I prefer it.”

A tension she had not noticed released. He was not just assessing her. He was talking to her. Really talking.

He had not called her “Your Imperial Highness.” Had not used her title at all. The realisation arrived belatedly, bringing with it a strange tangle of feelings. Improper, certainly. She was a princess of the blood; protocol demanded acknowledgement. Her tutors would have been scandalised.

And yet.

He spoke to her as if she were simply a person. Not a title to be addressed, not a rank to be navigated, but someone worth speaking to directly. The absence felt less like an insult than an offering.

A pause. She should dismiss him politely. Return to her reading. Maintain the appropriate distance between a princess and a foreign noble she had only just met.

Instead, she found herself asking: “What brings you to Valdoria, my lord? Truly. Not the diplomatic answer.”

He smiled. It transformed his face, made him seem younger, more approachable. “You assume there is a difference?”

“There is always a difference. The court runs on the gap between what is said and what is meant.”

“And you have learned to read that gap?”

“I have learned to notice it. Reading it is… more difficult.”

He leaned against the bookshelf, arms crossed, studying her with an intensity that should have felt invasive but somehow did not. “You watch your siblings very closely. At the reception, you were cataloguing their performances. Noting how each one tailored their approach.”

She stiffened. “You were watching me.”

“I was watching everyone. You were the only one watching back.”

The observation landed strangely. No one noticed her. That was the point. She had spent years perfecting invisibility, becoming furniture, fading into tapestries. And this stranger had seen through it in an afternoon.

“What else did you notice?” She meant it as a challenge. It came out sounding almost hungry.

“Your brother, His Imperial Highness Crown Prince Alistair, watched my footwork. He respects strength.” A slight smile. “Her Imperial Highness Princess Seraine asked about my temples but did not wait for my answer, she was already certain of hers. Their Imperial Highnesses the twins whispered to each other all afternoon. They are cleverer than they pretend.” He tilted his head. “And your parents sat their thrones like people waiting for something to end.”

She said nothing. He was not wrong.

“But you,” he continued, “stood at the edge of the room and watched everyone. You were the only one who seemed to understand what you were seeing.”

She should be alarmed. She should deny it. She should remember that this man was a stranger, a foreigner, someone whose motives she could not know.

But he had seen her. Actually seen her. Not the invisible youngest princess, not the sickly child, not the reader of dusty books. Her.

“How do you know about the empire?” she asked carefully.

“I read. I listen. I watch.” He smiled again, self-deprecating this time. “Esthold is distant, but not deaf. We hear things. Trade reports. Diplomatic dispatches. The price of bread in provincial capitals.”

“The price of bread.” Her voice was flat.

“It tells you more than any official report. When bread becomes expensive, people become desperate. When people become desperate, they riot. When they riot…” He spread his hands. “Well. You know what happens then.”

She thought of Tobias, going back into the burning bakery. Of the children’s screams. Of her mother’s cold dismissal: You understand nothing of ruling.

“I spoke to the council,” she said quietly. “After the riot. I asked for mercy for the survivors. For relief for the district.”

“I know.”

“They didn’t listen.”

“No.” His voice was soft. “They rarely do.”

Something in his tone. Not pity. Understanding. As if he knew exactly what it felt like to speak truth to power and be dismissed. As if he had been there himself, once, long ago.

“Why are you telling me this?” she asked. “Why seek out the forgotten princess when my siblings hold the real power?”

He did not answer immediately. Instead he turned back to the bookshelf, running a finger along the spines as if the question required no response at all.

“My lord?”

“Your siblings are certainly… entertaining.” He pulled a volume free, examined it without seeing it, replaced it. “But I find myself more interested in the one standing at the edges.”

The candles burned lower. Mira had long since finished arranging the tea things, and now sat in the corner with her mending, her needle moving in small, precise stitches. A proper chaperone, present but unobtrusive. If she listened to their conversation, she gave no sign.

Ilyra did not remember deciding to trust him. It happened gradually, question by question, observation by observation. He asked about the books she read, and actually listened to the answers. He asked what she thought of Valerian’s campaigns, and when she ventured a criticism that would have made her tutors blanch, he nodded thoughtfully and offered a counterpoint that showed he had read the same sources.

He knew things. History, governance, the mechanics of power. He spoke of trade routes and harvest yields, of how information flowed through a court and how to read the silences between words. And he spoke to her as if she were a colleague, an equal, someone whose thoughts were worth engaging.

At one point, she ventured a criticism of Empress Valeria’s northern campaign. The supply lines had been absurd, any child could see it, and he laughed. A real laugh, surprised out of him, and his face transformed. Younger. Warmer. Human, not courtier.

“I have never heard anyone call Valeria’s strategy ‘absurd’ before,” he said. “My tutors would have had me whipped for less.”

“Mine tried,” she admitted. “I learned to keep my opinions written in the margins.”

“Show me sometime,” he said. “I suspect your margins are more interesting than most people’s main text.”

Her face warmed. It meant nothing. He was being kind. She was simply unused to kindness.

She found herself saying more than she had meant to.

“My mother believes sentiment is weakness,” she admitted, somewhere in the second hour. “That caring about the common people is naive. That the only thing that matters is holding power.”

“And what do you believe?”

She hesitated. This was dangerous territory. But he had listened so carefully, and understood so much, and no one had ever asked her what she believed about anything.

“I believe power without purpose is just cruelty with a crown. I believe the empire could be different. Better.” She looked away. “I believe my mother is wrong. But I have no way to prove it.”

The silence stretched. When she looked back, he was watching her with an expression she could not read.

“What if you did?” he asked. “What if someone could teach you to navigate the court? To see what others miss, and use what you see?”

She almost laughed. “You are offering to teach me?”

“I am offering to help you see what you are already seeing.” He spread his hands. “The rest will follow.”

“We’ve only just met.”

“We have.” He inclined his head. “But I have been watching this court for some time, preparing for my visit. Your name came up more than once, in contexts that interested me. The princess who reads governance treatises. The princess who spoke for the starving. The princess who sees the rot that others ignore.”

She should be suspicious. She was, a little. A foreign archduke did not seek out the fifth-in-line princess without reason. There would be an angle, a motive, something he wanted.

But also: he had listened. He had understood. He had looked at her and seen something worth teaching.

“Why would you help me?” she asked.

“Perhaps I want to find out.”

She waited. He did not continue.

“Find out what?”

“Whether I’m right about you.” He smiled, and it was warm, and it made her feel seen in a way she had never been seen before. “That is the only honest answer I can give.”

She should say no. She should be cautious. She should remember that charming strangers did not seek out forgotten princesses without reason.

“Alright,” she said. “Teach me.”

Late evening. The gallery was quiet, ancestors watching from the walls, their painted eyes following her as she walked. Mira trailed several paces behind, a silent shadow, her presence the difference between an evening constitutional and impropriety. Ilyra was grateful for her discretion. She needed space to think, to process what she had agreed to.

A stranger would teach her court politics. A foreign archduke had sought her out, listened to her, offered help. It was absurd. It was reckless.

Footsteps ahead of her. She knew before she looked up.

“You are following me, my lord.”

“I am finding you,” he corrected. “There is a difference.”

She should be annoyed. She almost smiled.

“What now?” she asked. “When do we begin?”

He stepped closer.

She stilled. She told herself to step back, to maintain proper distance, but her feet did not move. He stopped just at the edge of propriety, close enough that she could see the way the lamplight caught in his gaze and disappeared into the depths of his dark eyes. Close enough that she could smell something faint and unfamiliar, like old books and winter forests and something else, something that made her want to lean closer.

She did not lean closer. She was a princess. She had self-control.

“First, tell me. What do you want from this empire? Not platitudes. Not what you would say to the court. What do you actually want?”

No one had ever asked her this. Not her family. Not the tutors who had taught her the safe subjects deemed appropriate for a princess. Not anyone.

She thought about it. Really thought.

“I want…” She stopped. Started again. “The suffering. I want it to stop. I want to be the one who-” A breath. The words felt stilted in her mouth. “I want it to be me. I know that sounds-”

“It sounds honest.”

She looked at him. He was watching her with an expression she could not read, but there was no mockery in it. No dismissal. The lamplight caught the angle of his cheekbone, the curve of his slips.

She was noticing his lips. She needed to stop noticing his lips.

“That is all I needed to hear,” he said. His voice was soft, almost gentle, and she felt it somewhere in her chest.

“Then we begin.”

“Tomorrow,” he continued. “We will start with observation. Learn to see what you are already seeing.”

He inclined his head, courteous, proper, and walked away.

She stood in the gallery, surrounded by her ancestors, and felt the shape of something beginning. A door opening. A path unfolding. A future taking form in the space between them.

She did not know what it was. But whatever it was, it felt like hope.