POV: Cordelia
I wake with the sensation of being observed.
Not watched by eyes—those I can manage—but by something older, quieter, pressed against the edges of my thoughts like breath against glass. I lie still for a long moment, listening to the palace breathe around me, to the distant shuffle of servants and the muted toll of bells marking the hour.
Sebastian is gone.
His side of the bed is cool, the sheets smoothed with military precision. Council again. Borders. Alliances. Always something that requires his absence. I should be grateful for the space, but the quiet makes the feeling sharper.
The warmth beneath my skin hums, unsettled.
“Not now,” I murmur, pressing my palm against my ribs.
It does not answer.
Breakfast is laid in the smaller dining room—sunlit, intimate, chosen for mornings like this when Sebastian is away. Silverware gleams. Porcelain plates are arranged in perfect symmetry, each one pristine, fragile, white as bone. Servants hover at a careful distance, eyes lowered, movements precise.
I sit.
The chair scrapes softly against the marble floor, a sound that echoes too loudly in my ears. The warmth shifts again, coiling tighter, as if bracing.
“You may begin,” I say.
A maid pours tea. Another sets a platter of fruit within reach. I lift my cup, inhale the steam, and try to breathe through the pressure building behind my eyes.
It feels like before.
The thought is unwelcome and immediate.
Before the tower burned. Before the world learned to bend.
A whisper brushes my awareness, not a voice, not words—memory. Glass cracking. Candles snuffing out. The way people flinched when I entered a room.
I squeeze my fingers around the cup.
“Stop,” I tell myself.
The warmth surges.
The cup fractures in my hand.
It doesn’t shatter outward. It implodes, porcelain collapsing in on itself with a sharp, concussive crack. Tea splashes hot against my skin as the sound ripples outward, violent and sudden.
Every plate on the table explodes at once.
Porcelain bursts into shards, fragments skittering across the marble like startled insects. Silverware clatters. A serving tray flips as if struck by an invisible hand. The noise is deafening, a cascade of destruction echoing off the walls.
The servants scream.
I am on my feet instantly, heart hammering, the warmth roaring beneath my skin like a storm breaking free of its restraints. For a heartbeat, the room looks exactly as it did in my childhood—terror frozen on faces, bloodless silence after the damage is done.
“No,” I whisper, forcing the magic down, clamping it back into my core with sheer will. Pain lances through me, sharp and punishing, but I welcome it. Pain sharpens control.
The room stills.
Shards settle.
Silence falls heavy and absolute.
The servants drop to their knees without being told, hands shaking, heads bowed low enough to touch the floor. One of them is crying softly, the sound thin and terrified.
I stare at them, my chest rising and falling too quickly, my pulse roaring in my ears.
Not again.
Not here.
I step forward slowly, the crunch of porcelain under my slippers loud in the quiet. The warmth coils tight now, contained but volatile, responding to my proximity to fear the way it always has.
“You will clean this,” I say evenly. “Every piece.”
“Yes, my lady,” several voices murmur at once.
One servant dares to lift her head—a girl no older than Elira had been. Her eyes are wide, glassy with shock.
“I—are you hurt?” she asks, voice trembling.
Something inside me snaps.
I move closer until she flinches back, my shadow falling over her like a blade.
“If a word of this leaves this room,” I say softly, “I will ensure your life becomes unrecognizable. Do you understand me?”
She nods frantically, tears streaking her face.
“I will not tolerate whispers,” I continue. “I will not tolerate fear. You saw nothing.”
“Yes,” she sobs. “Nothing.”
“Good,” I say.
I straighten and turn away, my hands shaking now that the magic is fully suppressed. The servants scramble to obey, gathering shards with desperate care, their silence complete.
As I leave the room, the smell of broken porcelain and spilled tea clings to me like smoke.
The memory does not fade.
It follows me through the corridors, through the palace gardens where sunlight filters through leaves and birds scatter at my approach. They always do. Animals sense what people deny.
I stop near the fountain, gripping the stone edge as nausea rolls through me. My reflection wavers in the water—older, harder, eyes too sharp.
This is how it began.
I remember the breakfast table in Astoria. The way the candles had shattered without warning. The way a servant dropped a tray and was struck for it because fear needed punishment.
I remember Maximilian’s hand gripping mine beneath the table, his whispered, It’s all right. I’ve got you.
I swallow hard.
He is not here.
No one is.
The warmth pulses erratically, responding to my unease, my anger, my fear. It is no longer content to be guided by ambition alone. It wants release. It wants acknowledgment.
“You’re not in control,” I whisper to it. “I am.”
The words feel thinner than they should.
By afternoon, paranoia has settled into my bones.
Every glance feels weighted. Every silence feels deliberate. I imagine eyes behind walls, ears pressed to doors, the palace itself leaning closer to listen.
I snap at a messenger for hesitating. I dismiss a lady-in-waiting for breathing too loudly. I cannot stop scanning rooms for threats that do not exist—or worse, exist but remain unseen.
This is the curse tightening.
Not the magic itself, but what it does to the mind when it grows faster than trust.
When Sebastian returns that evening, he finds me pacing.
“Cordelia,” he says carefully. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” I reply too quickly.
His gaze flicks to the bandage around my hand, hastily wrapped after the tea burned my skin. “Your hand.”
“I broke a cup.”
His brow furrows. “Just one?”
I stop moving and meet his eyes.
“Do you doubt me?” I ask.
“No,” he says immediately. Too immediately. “Of course not.”
The lie tastes bitter in the air between us.
“I need rest,” I say. “I won’t attend dinner.”
He hesitates, then nods. “As you wish.”
When he leaves, the quiet returns, heavier than before.
I sit on the edge of the bed and press my hands to my temples, breathing through the pressure building there. The warmth hums low and relentless, no longer a companion but a presence that demands attention.
The curse is not new.
It is remembering.
And for the first time since I stepped into this palace believing I had mastered everything, a single, unwelcome thought takes shape with terrifying clarity.
I am becoming the girl they feared.
The one no one touched.
And if I am not careful, the palace will remember her too.