enjoyebooks CHAPTER 71
CHAPTER 71
POV: Maximilian
I stop believing the funeral the moment the bread cart changes its route.
It happens three weeks after Celeste’s “death,” on a morning so ordinary it almost slips past me. I am walking the east corridor with my tutor, half listening to a lecture about border treaties, when I notice a servant turn sharply instead of heading toward the kitchens. The cart he pushes is narrow, stacked with loaves wrapped in cloth, and it rattles softly as its wheels bump over uneven stone.
He does not go where food usually goes.
He goes toward the old wing.
My pulse stutters.
That wing has been closed since before I was born. No chambers. No nobles. No reason for daily deliveries. I slow my steps without thinking, letting my tutor move ahead of me, then slip quietly into a side passage and follow the cart at a distance.
The servant glances over his shoulder twice.
The second time, his eyes flick toward me.
He looks away quickly and pushes the cart faster.
I don’t confront him. I don’t shout. I wait.
That night, long after the palace has gone quiet, I leave my room again.
I’ve learned how to move unseen. Which staircases creak. Which guards grow bored during the deepest hours of night. I take the long route, circling through servant corridors that smell of damp stone and soap, until I reach the base of the abandoned tower.
The iron door looms before me, darker than the surrounding walls, its surface scarred with old rust and newer reinforcement. I place my hand against it, feeling the cold seep into my skin.
This is where they would put her.
I listen.
At first, there is nothing.
Then—so faint I almost miss it—I hear breathing.
My heart slams into my ribs.
“Celeste,” I whisper.
Silence stretches, thick and suffocating.
I press closer, my forehead nearly touching the iron. “It’s me,” I say, my voice trembling despite my effort to steady it. “Max.”
There is a soft sound. A scrape. Then—
“Maximilian?”
Her voice is hoarse. Fragile. Real.
The world tilts.
“She’s alive,” I breathe, tears stinging my eyes. “Gods, Celeste, you’re alive.”
I fumble with the latch I’ve spent days studying, memorizing the guards’ routines, bribing a servant for the key mold. My hands shake so badly I almost drop the metal. The lock clicks open with a sound that feels impossibly loud.
I slip inside and close the door behind me.
The lantern light is dim, barely illuminating the narrow room. For a heartbeat, I don’t see her. Then she steps forward from the shadows, thinner than I remember, her hair dull, her eyes too large for her face.
She looks like a ghost of herself.
“Max,” she whispers again, as if afraid I will vanish if she says it too loudly.
I cross the room in three strides and pull her into my arms.
She breaks instantly.
She clutches at my tunic, sobbing into my chest, her body shaking so hard I have to brace my feet to keep us both upright. I hold her as tightly as I dare, terrified of hurting her, terrified of letting go.
“I thought you were dead,” she chokes. “They told me—no one came—I thought—”
“I know,” I murmur, my own voice breaking. “I know. I’m here. I’m so sorry.”
She pulls back just enough to look at me, her hands gripping my sleeves like anchors. “They said you buried me.”
“They lied,” I say fiercely. “They lied to everyone.”
Her eyes fill with something darker than relief—betrayal, sharp and cutting.
“They put me here,” she says. “They hurt me when I tried to use my magic. They—” She swallows hard. “They wanted me quiet.”
Rage flares white-hot in my chest.
“I won’t let them,” I say without hesitation. “I swear it.”
She searches my face, desperate. “You promise?”
“I promise,” I say. “I will not abandon you.”
The words feel like a vow, heavy and binding.
I sit with her on the narrow bed, my arm around her shoulders, listening to her shaky breaths even out. I take in every detail—the cracked stone, the warded air that makes my skin prickle, the way she flinches when she moves too quickly.
They’ve caged her.
“They announced your death,” I tell her quietly. “There was a coffin. A funeral.”
Her fingers tighten in my sleeve. “So no one will look for me.”
“Except me,” I say.
I pull a small bundle from inside my cloak—bread, a piece of cheese, a candle stub wrapped in cloth. Her eyes widen like I’ve brought her treasure.
“You came back,” she says.
“I will always come back,” I reply.
But even as I say it, fear coils in my gut.
Because now I know the truth.
The lie didn’t end with her “death.”
It only began.
And if the court is willing to bury my sister alive, then this palace is more dangerous than any enemy beyond its walls.
I kiss her forehead gently, committing the warmth of her skin to memory.
“We’ll be careful,” I whisper. “We’ll be smarter than them.”
She nods, pressing her face briefly against my shoulder.
For the first time since the chapel, since the empty coffin, hope flickers inside me—fragile, defiant.
The lie has cracked.
And through it, my sister breathes.