Hiding My Twin Heirs from the Ruthless Prince

CHAPTER 87

POV: Cordelia

I learn quickly how to keep my worlds from touching.

It starts with posture—how I stand beside Sebastian in public spaces, angled just enough to invite attention without claiming it. How I lean in when he speaks, then pull back first. How I let my laughter land softly and never linger. Seduction, I’ve learned, is not about heat. It’s about restraint sharpened to a point.

Henry taught me that without meaning to.

Sebastian finds reasons to summon me.

“Walk with me,” he says one afternoon as the court disperses from council. “I need air.”

“You have gardens,” I reply.

“I need conversation.”

I smile. “Those are rarer.”

He laughs and offers his arm. I do not take it. Not yet.

We walk beneath arches open to the sky, servants keeping a respectful distance. He speaks of treaties and trade routes, of how his father’s advisors argue in circles without listening to one another. I listen like someone who has nothing to gain, which is exactly why he keeps talking.

“You see things,” he says. “I can tell.”

“I see people,” I correct. “They’re easier.”

He glances at me. “What do you see when you look at me?”

I stop walking.

He stops too, surprised.

“I see a man who has learned how to want quietly,” I say. “And how to resent himself for it.”

His breath catches. “You shouldn’t say things like that.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re true.”

I let the silence stretch just long enough to feel the warmth stir beneath my ribs—interested, alert, not yet hungry.

“I won’t embarrass you,” I add gently. “Not unless you ask.”

He looks away first.

That is control.

At night, I leave the palace the way smoke leaves a room—unnoticed, unremembered.

Henry waits where he always does, beneath the city where stone remembers older things than crowns. He looks up when I enter the back room, ink-stained fingers pausing mid-note.

“You’re late,” he says.

“I was busy.”

“With whom?”

I shrug out of my cloak. “Does it matter?”

His jaw tightens. “It usually does.”

I pour myself a drink and sit across from him. The familiarity of the space settles my nerves in a way the palace never does. Here, the walls don’t pretend to be innocent.

“You smell like incense,” he says quietly.

“Court,” I reply. “Everything smells like something it’s trying to hide.”

He studies me, eyes sharp. “You’ve been careful.”

“Always.”

“Not about the prince,” he says.

I meet his gaze. “I didn’t say his name.”

“You didn’t have to.”

Silence presses between us, dense and uncomfortable. I let it. Henry has learned not to rush me. He knows better than to demand truths I haven’t decided to give.

“You’re balancing too much,” he says finally. “Public intrigue. Private study. Magic that’s responding to ambition now, not just anger.”

I take a slow sip. “You’re worried.”

“I’m observant.”

“You’re attached,” I correct.

He exhales, a sound halfway between a laugh and a surrender. “Maybe.”

I tilt my head. “Then you should be careful.”

Days pass in measured rhythm.

With Sebastian, everything is visible. Polished. Watched. We exchange looks across crowded rooms. We brush hands and pretend it’s accidental. We speak in half-sentences and let the unsaid do the work.

With Henry, everything is quiet. Hidden. He teaches me theory late into the night, tracing runes while I listen, correcting me when I rush, grounding me when the warmth pushes too hard.

“Again,” he murmurs as I draw a sigil too quickly.

I scowl. “It works.”

“It fractures,” he replies. “You feel it later.”

I erase the line and start again.

Sometimes, when the lesson ends, neither of us moves right away.

“You’re different lately,” he says one night, voice careful.

“Different how?”

“Sharper,” he answers. “Like you’re holding something back.”

I smile faintly. “I always am.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

I step closer, close enough that he can feel the warmth hum beneath my skin. “You don’t need to understand everything I do.”

His eyes darken. “I want to.”

“That’s your mistake.”

He flinches—not from the words, but from the truth behind them.

***

Sebastian grows bolder.

He invites me to a private gallery, dismisses the servants, pours the wine himself. The walls are lined with portraits of conquerors and saints, men who mistook legacy for virtue.

“You unsettle people,” he says, handing me a glass.

“I’m flattered.”

“You unsettle me.”

I take the wine. “That sounds dangerous.”

“Everything worth wanting is.”

He steps closer. I let him. I don’t move. I don’t lean in. I don’t step back.

“What do you want from me?” he asks quietly.

I meet his gaze. “Honesty.”

He laughs softly. “From a court like this?”

“From you,” I clarify.

He hesitates. “I want—” He stops himself. “I want to feel like myself again.”

I smile. “Be careful. That’s how people lose everything.”

His hand lifts, hovering near my wrist. I let the warmth rise just enough for him to feel it—not magic, exactly, but presence. Gravity.

He drops his hand.

Later, Evangeline watches us from across the room, her expression composed and sharp. She does not confront me. She does not need to. She understands restraint as well as I do.

This, too, is control.

Henry says nothing about Sebastian after that.

He watches me more closely. Asks more precise questions. Adjusts his lessons to account for the way my power responds now—eager when I imagine proximity to influence, steadier when I picture outcomes instead of feelings.

“You’re feeding it ambition,” he says one night. “That’s a volatile current.”

“So is stagnation,” I reply.

He closes his book. “You’re using both of us.”

I don’t deny it.

I set my cup down slowly. “I’m using opportunities.”

His voice tightens. “I’m not an opportunity.”

I meet his eyes. “Then don’t stand in my way.”

The words hang there, sharp and irreversible.

He looks away first.

***

I sleep little.

My mind moves constantly—paths branching, outcomes stacking, risks aligning. Sebastian offers access. Legitimacy. Visibility. Henry offers knowledge. Control. Precision.

I need both.

I keep them apart because overlap invites chaos. Because chaos breeds mistakes. Because mistakes are how towers are built and burned.

One night, Henry walks me to the stairs without speaking.

At the top, he says quietly, “If you ever have to choose—”

“I won’t,” I interrupt. “Choice implies loss.”

“And what if loss comes anyway?”

I pull my cloak tighter. “Then I’ll decide what it costs.”

I leave him there, watching.

---

Back in the palace, Sebastian waits for me in a shadowed corridor.

“I was hoping you’d come,” he says.

“I did.”

He studies my face. “You’re impossible to read.”

I smile. “That’s because you’re trying to see me as a woman instead of a variable.”

He laughs softly. “You’re not wrong.”

We stand too close. Not touching. Not yet.

“Goodnight, Cordelia,” he says.

“Goodnight, Your Highness.”

As I walk away, the warmth hums, pleased with the balance I’m maintaining—for now.

Two men. Two uses. One direction. I am not losing control. I am refining it.