Chapter Ninety-Five

Chapter Ninety-Five
I cannot sleep.
I lock the door behind me and sit at the small desk, the folder heavy in my hands like a thing that resists being opened. Under the lamplight the paper takes on a pale, conspiratorial sheen. I thumb past sections of dry legalese—clauses of trade, lines about authority and succession—until a different hand arrests me: a page whose cadence is not neutral but edged, less cautious, almost menacing.
"The abdication is secured under the assurance that the matter of indiscretion shall remain concealed. Disclosure of relations between the Former King and the household of the undersigned shall be considered a violation of this agreement, punishable by full nullification of terms and immediate reprisal."
The word indiscretion slices clean through the room. It sits there in black ink as if placed with intent, a scalpel at the throat of the document. My breath catches; the sentence feels designed to do that—to make the reader small and helpless.
I read it again, and this time I measure every comma, every legal turn. Each phrase falls like a weight: the household of the undersigned. The seal pressed into wax—two interlocked rings wrapped by a sword—glints like a promise. It is familiar in the way that a name can be familiar to someone who has learned to hate it: not a stray mark but the signature of a rival family Rex has always mentioned with a hardness in his voice.
A thought, sudden and terrible, arranges the pieces: this is not mere statecraft. This is intimate. This is shame made treaty. The former king's downfall—so carefully narrated as consequence or fate—was not the result of disease or defeat on a battlefield. It was orchestrated into silence. An affair, perhaps with the daughter or the wife of a sworn enemy, wrapped and buried beneath legal language and waxed with threat.
They did not need cannon or counsel to remove him. They needed only a document that bound tongues and threatened ruin; they needed a clause that converted truth into liability. The crown was handed over in private terms, not surrendered in public agony. The abdication reads like a transaction in which ruin was both the price and the lever.
My hand comes to the parchment, fingertips tracing the faint ridges of the seal as if the wax might crack and reveal what it hides. My pulse drums in my ears. The secret is broader than an abdication; it is an instrument meant to muffle scandal before it could widen into revolt. It is gravity disguised as ink.
A chill moves through me. How long has this sat here—this buried clause—within reach of anyone who knew to look? If the folder had been in this room all along, why had Rex not uncovered it? Had he never needed to look? Or had someone placed it where I could find it, set to be discovered by the very hands that tremble now?
Questions spool in my mind faster than facts: Who signed this for the undersigned? Who kept the key? Who stood to benefit from silence, and who from exposure? And most dangerous of all—who among those close to Rex might have known the price that had to be paid?
I fold the page inward and, for a moment, the lamp's glow seems too small to light the consequences of what I have learned. Outside the door the palace rests as if nothing has shifted; inside me, everything has. This is not a political maneuver alone. It is a wound stitched with threats—and now that I know it exists, I cannot pretend ignorance will keep it sealed.

The night has given no rest, and the weight of sleepless hours clings to me as I take my seat at the long dining table. Rex sits at its center, his presence commanding even in silence, while I am placed at his side. Ben occupies the chair next to mine, and across from us, my parents and Gracie exchange polite remarks, their voices weaving a fragile veil of normalcy over the morning.
I remain still, present in body but absent in spirit. My fatigue is written plainly upon my face, but Rex does not remark on it; his silence spares me, though it also leaves me strangely alone. My family continues their small talk with him, a stream of gentle courtesies and safe questions, yet I feel myself slipping further away, a quiet observer at a table where my own voice is unnecessary.
When breakfast concludes, Rex rises, duty pulling him toward another event that demands his presence. He leaves with that same steadiness he always carries, his shoulders already bearing the invisible weight of crown and country. I remain behind with my family, though their company feels distant. At last, I excuse myself, unable to endure the heaviness in my body. No one questions me; perhaps they, too, see the truth—that I am unraveling beneath the surface.
In the solitude of my chamber, I lock the door, as if sealing myself against the world outside. I slip into soft pajamas and retreat beneath the folds of the blanket. Yet sleep does not come easily, not while my thoughts circle the same truth: tomorrow we return to the States. The very idea feels foreign, almost impossible. A part of me longs for the familiar comfort of home, yet another part clings stubbornly to this place.
It is not Madrid itself I resist leaving, but what it represents—Rex, the crown, and the secrets that seem to tighten around us like a noose. Every day here uncovers another shadow, another silence too carefully preserved. I fear that if I leave now, I will carry questions forever unanswered, threads left dangling in a tapestry I barely understand.
But exhaustion at last wins its battle. My eyes grow heavy, my body surrendering before my mind can fight further. Wrapped in the blanket, caught between dread and longing, I finally drift into sleep, uncertain whether I dream of home or of the kingdom I am reluctant to abandon.

Rex wakes me up from a restless sleep six hours later. The light filtering through the tall windows has shifted to a muted gold; it is already three in the afternoon. He has just returned from whatever official engagement had taken him away, his presence filling the room like a stormcloud.
"Are you all right?" His voice is low, measured, though the question feels less like concern and more like an opening move.
"I didn't sleep at all last night," I admit, my throat dry.
"Violet," he says, shifting on the edge of the bed until he faces me fully. His eyes search mine with a cool precision. "You do realize this mansion is saturated with security—guards, cameras, silent watchmen everywhere?"
My stomach sinks; I understand at once why he has been so distant since morning. "I suppose so," I murmur, though my gaze flickers away.
"Then perhaps you can explain," he continues, his tone sharpening, "what exactly you were doing in the old office next to the war room."
A hard swallow catches in my throat. I glance at everything but him—the curtains, the polished floor, the faint pattern of the rug—anything to avoid his eyes. "Nothing. I only forgot—"
"Violet," he cuts in, his voice low but edged with steel. "Do not lie to me. If you do, I will begin to believe that you are marrying me for reasons other than what you claim."
My head snaps up, eyes widening. "Oh my God, Rex, that is not it at all!" My voice breaks, a flash of panic surging through my chest. "It's just... it's something very strange, and I didn't know how to—"
"Then tell me the truth," he commands.
I draw a slow breath, rising from the bed as though the air itself has turned heavy. "Wait."
"Do not run from me," Rex exclaims, his voice echoing off the high ceiling. "I am demanding you—"
"Here." I thrust the folder toward him, my hands trembling. "Yesterday, when we stepped inside, I saw this. You didn't seem to know it was there, so I took it. I needed to see for myself what it contained. Everything you'll read inside... that's what kept me awake."
For a moment, he does not move. Then, slowly, Rex takes the folder from my hands as though it might burn him. He opens it with deliberate care, his expression unreadable but his knuckles pale against the paper. I watch him in silence, waiting, my heart a drum in my chest.
When at last he closes it, he does not speak. He places the folder on the bed as though setting down a blade, and without another word turns and strides from the room.
"Rex—talk to me," I call after him, following him into the corridor.
He wheels around, his voice cracking with fury and disbelief. "So it's all a lie?" he shouts. "I am not a king at all. I am a puppet—an heir to nothing but their manipulation. How could they do this?"
"Please," I whisper, reaching for his hand. "Let's talk inside."
After a heartbeat's hesitation, I manage to take his hand and guide him back into the room, the door closing behind us like a seal.