Hiding My Twin Heirs from the Ruthless Prince

CHAPTER 70

POV: Celeste

I wake up because it hurts to breathe.

At first, I think I am still dreaming. The pain is dull and everywhere, like I have swallowed ice and it has lodged inside my chest. My throat burns. My head throbs. When I try to move, something sharp slices through my ribs and I cry out despite myself.

My voice echoes.

That is wrong.

I open my eyes.

Stone fills my vision. Rough gray blocks stacked too tightly together, damp with cold, close enough that it feels like they are leaning toward me. There are no curtains. No windows. No pale blue walls. No familiar furniture. I am lying on a narrow bed bolted directly into the floor, its mattress thin and smelling faintly of dust and old cloth.

I sit up too fast and immediately regret it.

Pain flares through my chest, hot and punishing, as if invisible hands are squeezing my lungs. The warmth inside me—the thing that always responds when I am frightened—surges instinctively.

It slams into something solid.

I gasp.

The sensation is unbearable. It feels like pressing my bare hands against a wall of ice and fire at the same time. My vision whites out. I clutch at my chest, nails digging into fabric, and fold forward, retching air I can’t seem to draw properly.

Something is wrong. Very wrong.

When the pain eases enough for me to think again, I notice the silence.

Not the quiet of the palace at night, filled with distant footsteps and murmured voices. This silence is absolute. Heavy. As if sound itself has been smothered.

“Hello?” I whisper.

My voice bounces back to me, thin and distorted.

I slide off the bed carefully, my legs unsteady beneath me. The floor is stone, cold even through my slippers. I take a step, then another, my fingers trailing along the wall until I reach a door.

It is iron.

Thick, dark, reinforced with bands that disappear into the stone around it. There is no handle on my side. No latch. Only a narrow seam where it meets the frame.

“Mother?” I call, louder now. “Father?”

Nothing.

I pound on the door with my fists. “Maximilian!”

The echo of my own voice answers me.

Panic blooms fast and sharp in my chest. The warmth stirs again, responding instantly, eagerly, but the moment it rises it is crushed back down by the same invisible force. The pain is worse this time, a burning pressure that radiates outward from my heart.

I scream.

The sound tears out of me raw and desperate, scraping my throat until it hurts. I keep screaming anyway, pounding on the iron door, my palms stinging with every impact.

“Please!” I cry. “Please, I didn’t mean to! I won’t do it again, I swear—just let me out!”

My voice cracks. I slide down the door until I am sitting on the floor, my knees drawn to my chest, my breath coming in ragged gasps.

No one answers.

Minutes pass. Or hours. I can’t tell.

Eventually, the pain in my chest dulls to a constant ache, like a reminder that I am being watched by something I cannot see. I wipe my face with trembling hands and force myself to stand again.

The room is small. Smaller than my old bedchamber by far. I can take maybe five steps from one wall to the other. There is a small table bolted to the floor, a chair beside it, and a basin with a pitcher of water. No mirror. No decoration. No color.

No window.

The realization hits me slowly, like something heavy sinking into place.

I am not meant to see outside.

I try the walls again, pressing my palms flat against the stone, searching for seams, cracks, anything. Nothing gives. The air feels wrong here, too still, too controlled. When I close my eyes, I can almost sense it—thin threads woven through the space, humming faintly.

Wards.

I don’t know how I know that word, but I do.

They are wrapped around me like a cage.

I swallow hard and back away.

“Okay,” I whisper to myself, my voice shaking. “Okay. This is fine. This is just… a room.”

I sit on the bed and hug my arms around my body, rocking slightly without realizing it. My heart pounds. My thoughts race.

How did I get here?

The last thing I remember is the guards. Elira’s blood on the marble. My mother’s face, pale and horrified. My father’s voice, sharp and final.

Then darkness.

They didn’t tell me anything.

They didn’t say goodbye.

Hours pass before the door opens.

I jump to my feet, hope flaring so bright it hurts.

A guard steps inside carrying a tray of food. He does not look at me. He sets the tray on the table and retreats immediately, the door slamming shut behind him with a final, echoing clang.

I rush to the door. “Wait! Please!”

No response.

The food smells plain—bread, thin soup, an apple. My stomach twists with hunger and nausea at the same time. I eat anyway, my hands shaking as I tear the bread into pieces.

“Max will come,” I whisper to myself. “He always does.”

I cling to that thought as the hours stretch on.

Night falls without warning. There is no gradual dimming of light, no sunset to mark the passing of time. One moment the room is dim, the next it is dark. A single lantern flickers to life in the corner, casting weak shadows that dance along the walls.

I curl up on the bed and wait.

I listen for footsteps. For the soft knock Maximilian always gives when he sneaks into my room. For any sound at all that means I am not alone.

Nothing comes.

The next day passes the same way.

Food arrives. No words. No faces. Just the iron door opening and closing, the warded air pressing against my chest every time I move too quickly or let my thoughts stray toward my magic.

I scream again that day. I can’t help it. The fear builds until it spills over, hot and choking, and I pound on the walls with my fists until my knuckles ache.

“Let me out!” I sob. “Please!”

The wards react instantly.

Pain explodes through me, sharp and punishing, driving me to my knees. I curl inward, gasping, my vision blurring with tears.

I learn very quickly what happens when I fight.

Days blur together.

I measure time by meals, by the dull ache in my chest, by the moments when exhaustion finally drags me into restless sleep. I dream of windows. Of sunlight. Of Elira’s smile and Maximilian’s laugh.

When I wake, the stone walls are always there.

On the fourth day—maybe the fifth—I lose my voice.

I scream until there is nothing left, until my throat burns and my chest feels raw. After that, I stop trying.

I sit quietly instead, my back against the wall, my knees pulled close. I watch the lantern flicker. I trace the lines between the stones with my fingers. I breathe slowly, carefully, the way I’ve learned to do.

The warmth inside me recedes, not gone, but subdued, coiled tight and wary.

They want me quiet.

They want me contained.

The thought settles into me with a sickening calm.

I am not here to be helped.

I am here to be hidden.

One night—long after I have stopped hoping—I hear something.

A soft sound near the door. A pause. Then a whisper, so faint I think I imagine it.

“Celeste.”

My heart leaps violently in my chest.

“Max?” I whisper hoarsely.

Silence answers.

I press my ear to the cold iron, my breath shallow, my hands trembling.

“Maximilian?” I try again.

Nothing.

The sound does not come again.

But I cling to it anyway, to the possibility that it was real, that he is still out there somewhere, still looking for me.

Because if he isn’t—if no one is—then this tower is not just a prison.

It is my grave.