Chapter 1 - THE MARK BENEATH HER COLLAR

The King stopped breathing.

For twenty-three years, King Aldric had imagined a thousand ways his missing daughter might return to him.

None of them looked like this.

Not on her knees.

Not dressed in rags.

Not with a red handprint burning across her cheek.

And certainly not at the feet of the young woman who had spent the last twelve years calling him Father.

“Release her.”

The King's voice was barely louder than a whisper.

The guards hesitated.

Princess Celestine stared at him.

“Father, she broke into the palace.”

Aldric's eyes never left the mark on the stranger's neck.

“I said release her.”

The guards immediately stepped away.

The young woman remained on her knees.

Her name was Elara.

At least, that was the only name she remembered.

She slowly touched the broken ribbon hanging from her neck.

She had spent her entire life hiding the red mark beneath it.

Her foster mother had warned her never to show it.

Never.

Not to priests.

Not to soldiers.

Especially not to anyone connected to the royal family.

Elara had never understood why.

Now she watched the King descend the golden steps toward her.

His face looked almost ghostly.

Celestine followed him.

“What is happening?”

Aldric stopped directly in front of Elara.

His trembling hand rose.

Then stopped.

He seemed afraid to touch her.

“Where did you get that mark?”

Elara swallowed.

“I was born with it.”

A murmur swept through the court.

Celestine laughed nervously.

“A birthmark?”

“That is what has everyone frightened?”

Nobody answered her.

Aldric stared at the red shape.

A circle surrounded by eight narrow rays.

The Royal Sun.

A mark carried by only three known members of the Valorian bloodline in the last four hundred years.

Aldric's grandfather had carried it.

Aldric himself carried a faded version beneath his left shoulder.

And the royal physician had recorded the same mark on Princess Aurelia the night she was born.

The daughter Aldric had buried twenty-three years ago.

Or believed he had buried.

“Your name.”

Aldric's voice broke.

“Elara.”

“Your family name?”

“I don't have one.”

Celestine rolled her eyes.

“Convenient.”

Aldric turned toward her so sharply that she stepped backward.

“Enough.”

The entire court fell silent.

Elara slowly stood.

She was frightened, but something stronger than fear had begun rising inside her.

Anger.

She looked at Celestine.

“You slapped me because I asked to speak to the King.”

Celestine's face hardened.

“You came here dressed like a thief.”

“I came here because my mother died three days ago.”

That stopped Aldric.

Elara reached beneath her torn coat.

The guards immediately reached for their swords.

“Wait.”

Elara pulled out a small wooden box.

It was old.

Burned along one side.

A golden symbol had almost completely faded from the lid.

Almost.

Aldric recognized it anyway.

His knees nearly gave out.

It was the private crest of Queen Marianne.

His dead wife.

“Where did you get that?”

“My mother gave it to me before she died.”

Elara held it toward him.

“She told me to bring it here.”

Aldric opened the box.

Inside was a silver infant bracelet.

One tiny word had been engraved into it.

AURELIA.

Aldric staggered backward.

The royal court erupted.

Celestine's face went white.

“No.”

Aldric lifted the bracelet with trembling fingers.

“I put this on my daughter's wrist myself.”

Elara stared at him.

For the first time, her anger disappeared.

“What are you saying?”

The King looked into her eyes.

And suddenly he saw Marianne.

Not vaguely.

Not hopefully.

He saw his dead wife's gray-green eyes staring back at him.

Aldric's voice broke.

“You are my daughter.”

Elara froze.

Celestine stepped forward.

“No!”

Every head turned.

She realized too late how desperate she sounded.

She quickly changed her expression.

“Father, this is obviously a trick.”

Aldric ignored her.

He reached for Elara.

Elara backed away.

“Don't.”

That single word devastated him.

He lowered his hand.

Elara's eyes filled with tears.

“If I'm your daughter, where were you?”

Nobody moved.

“Where were you when I slept in barns?”

Aldric's face collapsed.

“Where were you when I went hungry?”

“Elara—”

“Where were you when my mother spent twenty-three years terrified that someone would find me?”

The King had no answer.

Because somewhere inside the palace, another man had just heard everything.

Lord Chancellor Severin Vale stood behind one of the marble pillars.

He had served the crown for thirty years.

He had been present the night Princess Aurelia supposedly died.

And when he saw the Royal Sun on Elara's neck, he knew exactly what it meant.

The dead baby had come home.

Severin quietly slipped away from the throne room.

Then he entered an empty corridor and summoned Captain Darius.

“Seal the eastern gate.”

Darius frowned.

“Why?”

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Severin looked back toward the throne room.

“Because before sunrise, that girl must disappear again.”