The road from Ashford to Verlaine was supposed to take three days by carriage. Rowena and Kaelan made it in two, riding hard through the autumn countryside, stopping only when the horses needed rest. They avoided the main roads, sticking to the smaller paths that wound through forests and along riverbanks—routes that Kaelan knew from his years as a knight, routes that were harder to ambush and easier to defend.
Rowena had not been on a horse for this long since her second life, when she had been a messenger for a rebel army. Her body remembered the ache of it, the way her thighs burned and her back stiffened. But the pain was almost welcome. It kept her grounded, kept her from drifting too far into the sea of memories that still swirled beneath her consciousness.
Kaelan rode beside her, his eyes always moving, scanning the treeline, the horizon, the road ahead. He had been quiet since they left Ashford, not cold, but thoughtful—the silence of a man who was preparing himself for something difficult.
"Tell me about your father," Rowena said on the second morning, as they stopped by a stream to let the horses drink.
Kaelan looked at her, surprised. "My father?"
"Lord Aldric. You've never really talked about him. Not about who he was, not about what he was like. Only about how he died."
He was silent for a long moment, staring at the water. Then he sat down on a fallen log, his sword across his knees, and began to speak.
"He was not a good man," Kaelan said quietly. "Not in the way that people expect fathers to be good. He didn't hug us. He didn't tell stories. He didn't come to our rooms at night to check if we were sleeping. But he was... present. Always present. He trained us himself—not because he enjoyed it, but because he believed that a Veyne who couldn't fight was a Veyne who would die. He taught me to hold a sword before I could read."
Rowena sat beside him, listening.
"My older brother, Alistair—named after the Duke, not because my father admired him, but because it was expected—was the heir. He was everything my father wanted. Tall, strong, clever with a blade. I was the spare. The one who could be sent away, married off, forgotten. But my father never treated me like I was lesser. He trained me just as hard. He pushed me just as far. He said that a spare who couldn't fight was worse than useless—he was a liability."
Kaelan's jaw tightened.
"When Alistair died—drowned in a hunting accident when he was nineteen—my father didn't weep. I never saw him weep. But he stopped eating. He stopped sleeping. He sat in his study for three days, staring at nothing. And then he called me in and said, 'You are the heir now. Do not disappoint me.'"
He looked at Rowena, and she saw something in his eyes that she had never seen before: fear. Not of an enemy, not of death. Fear of not being enough.
"I tried. I trained harder than I ever had. I learned to lead, to command, to make decisions that could cost men their lives. But I never felt like I was enough. I always felt like I was filling a space that was meant for someone else. And then I met Celine, and for the first time, I felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be. Not as the heir. Not as a spare. Just as... me."
Rowena reached out and took his hand. "You were enough, Kaelan. You were always enough. Your father was too broken to see it."
"Maybe." He sighed. "But he was still my father. And when he died—when I found him in that cellar, with the blood and the mirror and that horrible smile on his face—I felt like I had failed him. Like if I had been better, stronger, faster, I could have saved him. Like if I had been the son he actually wanted, he wouldn't have been so alone that he let the mirror take him."
"Kaelan." Rowena's voice was firm. "Caspian took him. Not loneliness. Not failure. Caspian. And Caspian is gone now. Your father's death was not your fault. It was not his fault. It was the cycle's fault. And the cycle is broken."
Kaelan stared at her for a long moment. Then, slowly, he nodded.
"You're right. I know you're right. But knowing and feeling are different things."
"They are," she agreed. "And that's why we're going to Verlaine. Not for revenge. For truth. For closure. For the chance to say goodbye to the people we lost, in our own way, on our own terms."
He squeezed her hand, then stood. "We should keep moving. We'll reach the outskirts of Verlaine by nightfall."
They rode on.
---
The sun was setting when they crested the last hill before the de Montfort estate.
Verlaine spread out below them like a painting—the white stone walls of the city, the dark ribbon of the river, the spires of the palace rising above the trees. It was beautiful in the dying light, the kind of beauty that made Rowena's chest ache with a grief that was not entirely her own.
Celine's grief. The girl who had grown up in those walls, who had walked those gardens, who had died in that cellar. Rowena carried her still, not as a separate voice, but as a part of herself. The part that remembered what it felt like to be small and afraid and desperately lonely.
"She's still with you," Kaelan said, as if reading her thoughts.
"She always will be," Rowena replied. "I don't think that's a bad thing."
They rode down the hill toward the city gates. The guards recognized Kaelan immediately—his face was well-known here—but they hesitated when they saw Rowena. She was not wearing the fine gowns of Lady Celine, nor the simple traveling clothes of a servant. She was something in between, and her eyes—one blue, one black, one brown—were not the eyes they remembered.
"Sir Kaelan," the captain of the guard said, stepping forward. "We received word that you were in Ashford. The Duke has been... anxious for your return."
"Has he?" Kaelan's voice was flat. "And Lady Mirabelle? Has he asked about her?"
The captain shifted uncomfortably. "The Duke has asked many questions, sir. I am not at liberty to discuss them."
"Of course." Kaelan dismounted, helping Rowena down from her horse. "We will announce ourselves at the palace. But first, we need to see someone."
He led Rowena through the city streets, past the familiar landmarks—the fountain where Celine had played as a child, the market where she had bought flowers for her mother's grave, the small chapel where she had prayed for a future that never came. Rowena felt each place like a memory that was both hers and not hers, a double exposure of two lives overlapping.
They stopped at a small house on the outskirts of the city, near the old cemetery. It was modest, with a garden full of herbs and a door painted blue. Kaelan knocked three times, paused, then knocked twice more.
The door opened.
An old woman stood there, her hair white, her face lined with years. She was small and bent, but her eyes were sharp—sharp and familiar. Rowena had seen those eyes before. In the mirror. In the bone mirror, in the reflection of her ninth life.
"Elara?" Rowena whispered.
The old woman smiled. "Not quite. I am her mother. I am the one who raised her. The one who buried her. My name is Marta, and I have been waiting for you, Rowena Ashworth. I have been waiting for a very long time."
---
Marta's house was small but warm. A fire crackled in the hearth, and the smell of rosemary and thyme hung in the air. She led them to a sitting room filled with old furniture and older books, and gestured for them to sit.
"You knew I would come," Rowena said.
"I knew someone would come." Marta poured tea into three cups, her hands steady despite her age. "I have seen things, child. Things that most people would call visions, or madness, or the ramblings of a senile old woman. But I know what I saw. I saw my daughter die on that altar. I saw her blood soak into the stone. And I saw something else—a woman with three faces, standing in the light, holding the key to everything."
She set the teapot down and looked at Rowena with eyes that held no fear, only a deep, weary acceptance.
"You are that woman. I knew it the moment I heard that Lady Celine had died and come back. The old Celine—my granddaughter—she was a sweet girl. Lonely, frightened, but sweet. You are not her. You are something else. Something older. Something that has been walking this world for a very long time."
Rowena didn't deny it. "I came to ask you about Elara. About what really happened. Lady Mirabelle told me some of it, but she wasn't there. You were."
Marta's face hardened. "I was there. I was the one who found her body, after the Duke had done his work. I was the one who held her hand while she turned to dust. I was the one who screamed, and screamed, and no one came."
She set down her cup with a clatter.
"Alistair de Montfort is a coward. He has always been a coward. When Elara refused to sacrifice her daughters, he could have refused Caspian. He could have said no. He could have let the gate open, let the world burn, let something new rise from the ashes. But he was afraid. So he sacrificed her instead. His own wife. The mother of his children. He gave her to Caspian like a lamb to slaughter, and he has been pretending ever since that it was an accident, that she died of illness, that he had no choice."
Her voice broke.
"He had a choice. He just chose wrong."
Rowena leaned forward. "If you could confront him—if you could tell him what you know—would you?"
Marta laughed bitterly. "Confront him? Child, I have been confronting him for years. Every time I see him in the street, every time I hear his name, every time I look at the palace and remember what he did, I confront him. He knows I know. He has tried to have me silenced, more than once. But I am an old woman, and I have nothing left to fear. He cannot take anything from me that I am not already willing to lose."
"Then come with us," Kaelan said. "Come to the palace. Tell the Duke of Ashworth what you saw. He is already investigating Elara's death. Your testimony could help."
Marta looked at him, then at Rowena. "You think the Duke of Ashworth will believe a poor old woman over a Duke of the realm?"
"I think the Duke of Ashworth lost his sister," Rowena said. "And I think he wants the truth more than he wants politics. Will you come?"
Marta was silent for a long moment. Then she stood, slowly, with the help of her cane.
"I will come. Not because I believe it will change anything. But because Elara deserves to have someone speak for her. Someone who loved her. Someone who remembers her smile."
She looked at Rowena with eyes that were wet but steady.
"You have her eyes, you know. Not the color—Elara's eyes were brown, like mine. But the way you look at the world. The way you refuse to look away from pain. That is her. That is my daughter. I see her in you, and I don't know whether to thank you or to weep."
Rowena reached out and took the old woman's hand. "Both," she said. "Both is fine."
---
They arrived at the palace as the moon rose—two moons, blue and red, casting their strange light over the white stone walls. The guards at the main gate recognized Kaelan and Rowena, but they looked uncertain, as if they were seeing ghosts.
"The Duke is in his study," one of them said. "He has been expecting you."
They walked through the familiar corridors—past the portrait gallery, past the grand staircase, past the door to Celine's old room. Rowena felt Celine's presence stir within her, a mix of fear and longing and something that might have been hope.
You don't have to be afraid anymore, Rowena thought. I'm here now. I'll face him for both of us.
The Duke's study was at the end of a long hallway, guarded by two men in de Montfort colors. They stepped aside when they saw Kaelan, and Rowena pushed open the heavy oak door.
Duke Alistair de Montfort sat behind his desk, just as he had on the day Rowena first saw him—cold, composed, unreadable. But there was something different about him now. He looked thinner, paler, as if the weeks since Celine's death had aged him by years.
"You came back," he said. His voice was flat, without emotion. "I wasn't sure you would."
"I came back to ask you a question," Rowena said. She stood in front of his desk, not sitting, not bowing. "What happened to Elara?"
The Duke's expression didn't change. But something flickered in his eyes—a shadow, a crack in the ice.
"Elara died of illness," he said. "You know that."
"Elara died on that altar," Rowena said. "In this palace. In the cellar where Celine almost died. She died because you chose to sacrifice her instead of your twin daughters. Lady Mirabelle saw it. Marta saw it. And now the Duke of Ashworth knows."
Alistair's hands, resting on the desk, began to tremble.
"You have no proof."
"I have witnesses. I have the bone mirror, which shows the truth. I have the space between, which remembers everything. And I have you, sitting here, lying to my face, when we both know that you could have said no. You could have refused Caspian. You could have let the gate open. You could have done anything other than what you did."
Rowena leaned forward, her hands on his desk.
"But you were afraid. You were so afraid of losing everything that you sacrificed the one person who loved you without condition. And now you have nothing. Your wife is dead. Your daughters are dead—one in truth, one in spirit. Your son-by-marriage is in Ashford, learning to hate you. And your allies are crumbling. So I will ask you again: what happened to Elara?"
The Duke stared at her. His hands stopped trembling. His face went pale, then gray, then the color of ash.
"She loved me," he whispered. "She loved me, and I killed her. I held her hand while Caspian took her soul. I watched her turn to dust, and I told myself it was necessary. I told myself I was saving the world. But I was saving myself. I was always saving myself."
He buried his face in his hands.
"I am a coward. I have always been a coward. And I have been living with that for longer than I can bear."
Rowena straightened. She felt no satisfaction, no triumph. Only a deep, bone-tired sadness.
"The Duke of Ashworth will arrive in three days," she said. "He will want to speak with you. He will want justice for his sister. I don't know what that justice will look like. But I know that you can choose, for the first time in your life, to face it like a man instead of hiding like a coward."
She turned to leave, then paused at the door.
"Celine forgave you, you know. In her heart, before she died, she forgave you. She didn't understand what you had done, but she forgave you anyway, because she was better than both of us. Remember that. Remember that she loved you, even when you didn't deserve it."
She walked out, and Kaelan followed, and behind them, Duke Alistair de Montfort wept.
---
They spent the night in Celine's old room.
Rowena sat on the bed—the same bed where she had woken up in this body, what felt like a lifetime ago—and looked out the window at the two moons. The room had been cleaned, the blood washed away, the furniture dusted. But she could still feel the echoes of Celine's presence here. The loneliness. The fear. The quiet hope that someday, someone would see her and stay.
"I think she would have liked you," Kaelan said from the doorway.
Rowena looked at him. "Celine?"
"She would have liked you. She would have been jealous at first—you're stronger than she was, braver. But she would have liked you. She always admired people who could say what they meant without apologizing."
Rowena smiled sadly. "I wish I could have known her. Not just her memories, but her. The real her. The one who laughed and cried and dreamed."
"You do know her," Kaelan said. "She's part of you now. That's not nothing."
He crossed the room and sat beside her on the bed. They were quiet for a long time, listening to the night sounds of the palace—the creak of old wood, the distant murmur of guards, the soft hoot of an owl in the garden.
"What will you do now?" Kaelan asked. "After Ashford. After the Duke's trial. After all of this."
Rowena leaned her head on his shoulder. "I don't know. I've never had an 'after' before. In all my lives, I've always died before the sun rose on this day. This is new territory."
"Does it scare you?"
"Terrifies me." She laughed softly. "But in a good way. In a way that feels like possibility instead of dread."
Kaelan wrapped his arm around her. "Then we'll figure it out together. One day at a time."
"Together," she agreed.
They sat there, in Celine's room, under the light of two moons, and for the first time in nine lives, Rowena allowed herself to imagine a future. Not a mission. Not a sacrifice. Not a cycle. Just a life. A simple, ordinary, precious life.
It was terrifying.
It was wonderful.