Chapter 2.5

Cyril Ravehart did not appreciate being summoned for trivialities—especially not by the woman he was bound to by politics, not affection.

When the maid hurried to him, pale and trembling, saying “Lady Marie seems… unwell,” he almost dismissed it. Marie Margaret was always doing something dramatic to pull him away from his duties. A feigned fainting spell. A fabricated illness. A tantrum hidden beneath the guise of etiquette.

He had grown numb to her theatrics.

But the maid’s trembling didn’t feel feigned. Her uncertainty seeped into him like cold water.

“Very well,” he said at last, masking irritation with restraint. “I’ll see her.”

As he walked through the corridor toward her chambers, his mind drifted—unwillingly—to someone else.

Elowen Hale.

The quiet girl with gentle eyes.

The one who had stumbled into the palace library a few weeks ago, clutching a stack of books and apologizing for breathing too loudly.

He shouldn’t have noticed her.

And yet, he had.

Elowen was everything Marie wasn’t—calm, thoughtful, humble. Conversations with her felt like stepping into sunlight after years of winter. She asked him questions about the world, not about power. She listened. She cared.

Marie, on the other hand—

He exhaled sharply as he reached the villainess’s door.

She cared for nothing but influence, control, and keeping every rival beneath her heel. Her ambition was a storm that swallowed everything in its path.

Which was why Cyril felt no guilt in keeping his distance… or in letting his attentions drift elsewhere.

He opened the door without knocking.

Marie was standing by her mirror, back rigid, shoulders tense. But the moment she turned toward him—

Cyril paused.

Something was wrong.

She looked as though someone had swapped her with a frightened ghost. Her violet eyes, usually sharp and calculating, were wide with confusion. Her hands shook faintly at her sides. Gone was the haughty smirk she loved so dearly.

And then he saw it.

Blood.

A thin streak, barely there, stained the corner of her mouth.

Cyril’s jaw tightened.

Marie never let herself appear vulnerable. Not once. Not even in private.

“Marie,” he said carefully, stepping closer. “They said you were unwell.”

She didn’t respond the way he expected. No scoff. No insult. No dramatic retort.

Just silence—and fear.

Fear, from Marie Margaret.

It didn’t make sense.

“You look… different,” he murmured, scanning her face.

Different, and disturbingly sincere. Marie was many things, but sincere was never one of them.

Was she putting on an act? Another performance to keep him off guard?

His mind flicked back to Elowen. Her softness. Her honesty.

A stark contrast to the creature trembling before him now.

Cyril softened his tone, but his suspicion sharpened.

“Were you injured?” he asked. “Or is this one of your games?”

Marie flinched.

Flinched.

He felt a strange mix of irritation and unease. This was not the Marie he knew—

or the Marie he despised.

Then she answered with a trembling voice he had never heard from her:

“I… I’m not feeling like myself today.”

He studied her closely. The words were simple. Honest. Terrifyingly honest, coming from someone who lied with the ease of breathing.

If she *was* faking it, she was doing a disturbingly good job.

“You know I dislike lies,” Cyril said, watching her intensely.

Her eyes widened—as if the phrase itself terrified her.

A bizarre thought crossed his mind:

*She looks like she’s afraid of lying.*

Ridiculous.

Marie was incapable of fear.

Wasn’t she?

He reached out, lifting her chin gently. She did not slap his hand away. She did not glare or mock him. She simply stared, trembling like a child lost in a nightmare.

“Then I will accompany you today,” he declared. “Your behavior is… unusual. I don’t trust it.”

And as he held her gaze, a chilling realization flickered at the edge of his thoughts—

Whoever stood before him wasn’t the Marie he knew.

Someone was lying.

Or someone was *missing*.

But Cyril Ravehart didn’t believe in the impossible.

Not yet.

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