The gong had not yet stopped reverberating when the palace erupted into chaos. Shouts ricocheted through the stone corridors—guards clashing, servants weeping, lords demanding answers. The kingdom had lost its sovereign, and in the vacuum left behind, vultures circled.
Meredith dressed in silence. Her hands trembled as she tied the sash around her waist, her mind caught in a whirlwind. My father is dead. And I didn't even know him. Not really. Not the way his daughter did. She swallowed hard. The truth cut sharper than any blade—she was an imposter grieving a stranger's loss.
Kael stirred, sitting upright in the bed. No mask now, only the face of a man hardened by exile, scarred by survival. His eyes, clear and sharp, fixed on her.
"You've heard it," he said simply. Not a question. Not grief. Just certainty.
Meredith turned toward him, heart hammering. "It was you, wasn't it?" Her voice cracked, thin as glass. "You killed him."
Silence stretched between them. Kael did not flinch, did not deny. Instead, he rose, his every movement deliberate, controlled. He closed the distance, standing before her until she had to tilt her chin up to meet his gaze.
"He would never have allowed us to rule," Kael said at last. His voice was low, measured, as if explaining something inevitable. "You know that. He armed you with a dagger, asked you to slit my throat. Do you think he would have stopped there? No, Meredith. He drew first blood. I finished what he began."
Meredith's stomach turned, but beneath the sickness there was something else—relief. She had not wielded the blade. She had not committed the murder. And yet, her silence, her yielding, had placed the knife in Kael's hand as surely as if she had guided it herself.
"I never wanted this," she whispered. "I just wanted to go home. To my world. To my friends. To a life that made sense."
Kael's head tilted, studying her as though she were speaking madness. "This is your world," he said, firm but soft, like a father correcting a child. "Your friends, your life—they are gone. Dreams fading with the dawn. This is what remains. And now you are queen."
"I'm not," Meredith snapped, her voice breaking. "I'm not her. I never was."
For the first time, confusion flickered across Kael's face. His eyes narrowed. "Then who are you?"
The truth pressed against her lips, wild and unthinkable. She wanted to scream it—I'm Meredith, not your princess. I'm a cheerleader who doesn't belong here, who can't save this kingdom, who can't even save herself. But the words lodged in her throat. She saw his face, the calculating calm beneath the gentleness, and fear silenced her.
So she said nothing.
Kael's jaw flexed, the moment passing. He placed his hand on her shoulder, grounding, steady. "It does not matter. You wear her face. You sit her throne. And with you beside me, I have the crown. That is what the lords will see. That is what the people will believe. That is what makes us strong."
She shivered under his touch. Not from warmth. From the chill of inevitability.
Outside, the funeral bells began to toll.
Inside, Meredith felt the last threads of her old life unravel. The cheer routines, the gym lights, the laughter of her friends—they receded further, a dream slipping from grasp. In their place stood the cold weight of a crown she never asked for, and a husband who cloaked ambition in tenderness.
She stared at him, her voice barely audible. "And if I resist?"
Kael's lips brushed her forehead, a mockery of comfort. "Then, my queen, you will fall. And without you, so will I. We are bound now. In life, in death, in power."
Meredith closed her eyes, the bells echoing through her bones. The kingdom mourned its king. She mourned herself.
And as the doors to the royal council slammed open and lords demanded an heir, Kael clasped her hand, lifting it high for all to see.
"Behold your queen," he declared.
Meredith's world collapsed into silence.