By the time the Equinox banquet drew near, the palace was a boiling pot of whispers and tension, ready to spill over at the slightest tilt. Nobles arrived in procession, draped in embroidered silks and veiled secrets, their footsteps echoing over polished obsidian floors. Servants swept through the corridors like ghosts. Security tripled. And at the heart of it all stood a girl no one saw coming.
Elara moved through the palace not as royalty, not even as a servant but as something more dangerous: a ghost in her own life.
She wore her old mask now. The perfect maid. Eyes downcast. Back straight. Quiet, unassuming.
But behind the silence, her mind raced.
Someone had marked her. Not just as a threat but as a key to something greater. The Mirror Rebellion was real, and worse, it wasn't her rebellion. She hadn't started it. But she might have to finish it.
"Stay in the servant's corridor during the banquet," Corven warned her that morning, slipping a wax-sealed letter into her apron pocket. "You'll hear what you need without being seen."
She raised a brow. "Is that what you're doing?"
He smirked. "I'm attending as a diplomat's escort. Disguises work both ways."
Elara looked down at the seal on the envelope House Lysarin's crest. "A forged invitation?"
"An old one," Corven corrected. "Someone wants you to see what they saw. That letter was intercepted. It was supposed to go to the Queen's impostor."
Elara's breath hitched. "She's receiving secret messages now?"
"From multiple houses. They're rallying behind her. They believe she's the real one."
Something inside her curled tight. If the impostor truly had the support of noble houses… Elara might not just be erased. She might be replaced.
The ballroom gleamed like a dream towering crystal chandeliers, golden phoenix tapestries, and tables set with delicacies that shimmered with illusion magic. Elara watched from a hidden alcove in the wall, behind an old wine cabinet that opened just wide enough to hear everything.
From her vantage point, she could see Kaelith, radiant in white and silver, standing beside the impostor the girl who wore Elara's face like a crown.
She smiled. She charmed. She danced with nobles Elara had once punished for treason.
And no one questioned her.
Except one.
Lady Lysara stood alone near the banquet doors, wine untouched in her glass. Her sharp gaze kept flicking to the impostor's fingers as if watching for a tremble that never came.
"She's trying to find the cracks," Elara whispered.
Then she heard it.
"…and I remember the flames," a nobleman said, leaning toward the impostor. "The way she screamed. I was there. I saw the real one burn."
Elara's heart pounded. The impostor only smiled.
"I'm grateful to the gods that I survived it," she said. "Fire is cruel, but faith is stronger."
Elara's mouth went dry.
She was mimicking her. Down to the phrasing. Her voice was calm, but the words were hers. Someone had coached her or copied her memories.
Corven was right.
She's a construct. Or worse… a version of me.
A familiar figure stepped beside the impostor then.
Lord Halric D'Ama. Her old enemy.
He handed her a scroll.
Elara's eyes narrowed. She recognized the seal: The Royal Edict of Execution.
But it wasn't the one she remembered.
This seal was newer. Modified.
And then the impostor whispered something that made the blood drain from Elara's face.
"Thank you for forging the original order. Without it, they never would've believed the lie."
Forging…?
Elara's hand pressed against the wooden wall.
The execution order had been fake?
No not fake. Rewritten. Someone had edited it. Changed the name. That meant… it was never originally meant for her.
Her blood ran cold.
Later that night, Corven found her in the west tower, where old curtains still held the scent of soot.
"They changed the records," she whispered. "The execution order… wasn't for me."
Corven didn't blink. "I suspected."
Elara turned sharply. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I didn't know who it was for."
She stepped back. "Then who died in my place?"
He hesitated, then pulled a scorched page from his coat. "I found this behind the chapel altar. Burned into the wall behind the holy sigils."
It was a prayer scroll. Mostly unreadable. Except one name remained:
"Kaedra Ravaryn."
Elara's knees buckled. She grasped a pillar.
Kaedra.
Kaelith's older sister.
She had died mysteriously just before Elara's engagement the palace had claimed it was illness.
"They used the execution fire," Elara whispered. "They were trying to kill her. Not me."
Corven nodded grimly. "You took her place by accident. Or maybe someone intended for that switch. Either way, your death was… convenient."
Elara's stomach twisted.
So she wasn't the original threat.
She was a substitute.
And yet… the fire had worked. It had changed her, broken time, given her a second chance. But that meant the truth about the original sacrifice was buried beneath years of lies.
"Elara," Corven said, voice low. "If the impostor is using your past to control the future… what happens when she finds out she's not the real heir either?"
Elara stared at the blackened prayer scroll.
"Then she'll burn everything."