Chapter 126 Maya's Discovery
The storage room smelled of dust and old paper. Maya had been assigned to organize the chaos of discarded belongings left by former servants. Most of it was worthless. Broken furniture, stained linens, things deemed too worn to use but not worth the effort to dispose of properly.
But tucked in a corner behind a stack of cracked basins, Maya found a wooden box.
It was small, plain, with a simple latch. Nothing special. But when Maya opened it, her breath caught.
Inside lay a leather-bound journal. The cover was worn, the pages yellowed with age. And on the first page, written in careful script:
“Property of Lila Hartwell”
Maya's hands shook as she turned the pages. This was from before. Before whatever happened to steal Lila's memories. Before the punishment, the demotion, the loss of everything.
The entries were sparse but revealing. Dates from four years ago. Descriptions of palace life. And throughout, mentions of someone whose name made Maya's chest tighten.
She had to show Lila. Had to give her this piece of her past, even if it hurt.
Maya found Lila in her quarters, lying on her narrow bed with an arm draped over her eyes. The binding around her ribs showed beneath her thin dress.
"Lila? Are you awake?"
Lila moved her arm, squinting against the light from Maya's candle. "Barely. My ribs are screaming."
"I know, and I'm sorry to disturb you. But I found something. Something important." Maya set the candle down and pulled the journal from her apron. "This was in the storage room, hidden but It's yours."
Lila sat up slowly, wincing. She took the journal with tentative hands, staring at her own name on the cover.
"I don't remember this."
"I know. But maybe reading it will help." Maya sat beside her on the bed. "I read some of it. I shouldn't have, but I needed to know if it was real. Lila, there are things in there. About the palace. About..."
"About what?"
Maya took a breath. "About him, about the King. About feelings you had before everything went wrong."
Lila's hands tightened on the journal. "Show me."
Maya flipped to a marked page. "Here! This entry is from four years ago. Two months before Queen Celeste died."
Lila read aloud, her voice barely a whisper:
"I attended the royal wedding today. The entire kingdom celebrated. Celeste looked beautiful, radiant in white silk and diamonds. She was always the special one. The one destined for greatness.
I stood in the cathedral holding her flowers, trying to be happy for her. And I was. Truly. She deserved this. She deserved to be queen.
But then he turned. Adrian Blackthorn, the Alpha King. He turned to face his bride and our eyes met across the crowd.
I felt it. Like lightning. Like drowning and breathing for the first time simultaneously. Every nerve in my body came alive. My wolf surged forward, screaming a truth I couldn't accept.
Mate!
He's my mate. And I just watched him marry my sister."
The words hung in the air between them. Lila's hands shook so badly the journal nearly slipped from her grasp.
"No," she whispered. "That's not possible."
"Keep reading."
Lila's eyes scanned the next entries. Her breathing grew shallow.
"I can't stay here. I need to leave. Every day seeing them together is torture. But Celeste asked me to remain at the palace. She wants family close. How can I refuse her when she doesn't know what her happiness costs me?"
"Adrian knows. I see it in his eyes when we pass in hallways. He feels it too. The bond. The pull. The wrongness of him being with her when we're meant for each other. But he says nothing. Does nothing. And neither can I."
"Three years. I've survived three years of this torture. Watching him try to love her. Watching her grow bitter because he can't. Watching my sister suffer in a loveless marriage while I suffer in silence. This is hell. There's no other word for it."
Lila's head began to throb. Pain spiked behind her eyes, sharp and insistent. Images flashed through her mind, fragmented and incomplete.
A cathedral filled with white flowers. Ice-blue eyes meeting hers. A bond snapping into place like a key turning in a lock.
Adrian's face, younger, less hardened. Looking at her with longing and desperation.
Celeste crying in her chambers, asking why her husband couldn't love her.
The images came faster, overlapping and confusing.
She could recall a balcony. Celeste arguing with someone. It was a man's voice, familiar but wrong in ways she couldn't recall.
She remembered the forest, the horse race, the way scream shot through the bush and then blood!!!
"Stop!" Lila dropped the journal, pressing her palms to her temples. "It hurts. My head, it hurts."