Hiding My Twin Heirs from the Ruthless Prince

CHAPTER 67

POV: Celeste

Elira does not look at me the way the others do.

I notice it the first time she brings my breakfast tray, her steps quiet against the marble floor, her head bowed in the way servants are taught to bow. Most of them keep their eyes fixed on the ground when they enter my chambers, as if meeting my gaze might invite disaster. Elira glances up by accident—and then doesn’t look away.

She freezes for half a heartbeat, clearly realizing what she’s done.

I wait for her to flinch. To cross herself. To retreat.

She doesn’t.

Instead, she straightens her spine and says, “Good morning, Your Highness,” like she would say it to anyone else.

My chest tightens in a way that has nothing to do with the warmth inside me.

“Good morning,” I reply carefully.

She sets the tray down on the small table near the window. Her hands are steady. That alone feels strange enough to make me stare.

When she turns to leave, she hesitates.

“Would you like honey with your porridge?” she asks. “The kitchen has fresh today.”

I blink. “I… yes. Please.”

She smiles. Not the tight, frightened smile I am used to, but something softer. Real.

“I’ll bring it,” she says, and leaves.

I sit very still until she returns, afraid that if I move, I will somehow ruin whatever this is. When she places the small dish beside my bowl, our fingers almost touch.

Almost.

Nothing happens.

No glass cracks. No air tightens. No invisible pressure coils around my ribs. My heart thumps hard enough that I can feel it in my throat.

“Thank you,” I whisper.

“You’re welcome,” she says.

Then she does something no one else has done in years.

She lingers.

Elira comes back the next day. And the day after that.

Sometimes it’s honey. Sometimes it’s an extra piece of bread tucked beneath the napkin, still warm from the ovens. Once, it’s a small apple wrapped carefully in cloth, its skin polished until it gleams.

“You don’t have to,” I tell her the third time she does it, glancing nervously toward the door. “You could get in trouble.”

She shrugs. “Everyone needs to eat.”

Her voice is calm. Ordinary. Like we are not speaking in a palace that treats me like a loaded weapon.

She starts talking while I eat, quiet little comments about the kitchens, about which cook burns the soup most often, about the cat that keeps stealing fish when no one is looking. She never asks about my magic. Never asks why I don’t leave my chambers unless escorted.

She talks to me like I am a person.

I listen like someone who has been thirsty for a long time.

One afternoon, when the guards have drifted farther down the corridor, Elira sits on the edge of the chair across from me instead of standing.

My breath catches.

“You don’t have to stand,” I say quickly, though I’m not sure if I’m allowed to tell her that.

She glances at the door, then back at me. “If anyone asks, I tripped.”

A laugh escapes me before I can stop it. It sounds strange in my own ears, rusty from lack of use.

Her smile widens. “There it is.”

“What?”

“You,” she says. “You look different when you laugh.”

I look down at my hands. “People don’t usually like it when I do things.”

She frowns. “That’s stupid.”

I stare at her. No one has ever said that out loud.

“They’re afraid,” I murmur.

“Of what?” she asks.

I hesitate. “Of me.”

She studies me for a long moment, her brow furrowing slightly. Then she shakes her head. “I don’t see it.”

“You will,” I say.

“I won’t,” she replies simply.

Something inside me loosens. Just a little.

***

We become careful friends.

Elira never comes at the same time each day. Sometimes she brings my tray herself. Sometimes she sneaks in later with leftovers, slipping through the door while the guards are distracted. She tells me stories about the servants’ quarters, about people with names and lives I never knew existed beyond the palace walls.

In return, I tell her things too. Not everything. Not the warmth inside me or the way I sometimes feel like the air is listening. But small things. What I like to read. How I used to run through the gardens before they told me I shouldn’t.

“They won’t let you go outside at all?” she asks once, her voice sharp with disbelief.

I shake my head. “It’s safer.”

“For who?”

I don’t answer.

One evening, she brings me a piece of cake left over from a noble’s birthday feast. We sit on the floor, knees nearly touching, whispering and eating like conspirators.

“I used to think princesses were different,” she admits. “Perfect. Untouchable.”

“And now?” I ask.

She smiles crookedly. “Now I think you’re just lonely.”

The word lands softly, but it doesn’t hurt. Not like it used to.

For the first time in years, I begin to feel… steady. The warmth inside me still stirs, but it no longer spikes at every sound or sudden movement. When Elira laughs, when she tells me about the cat or complains about sore feet, the pressure eases.

It’s as if my magic—whatever it is—listens to her too.

The first time she touches me, it’s an accident.

She reaches to brush crumbs from my sleeve and freezes, her fingers hovering a breath away from my skin. I hold my breath, panic surging through me.

“It’s all right,” she says quietly. “If you want me to stop—”

“You can,” I say quickly. “I mean… you can do it.”

Her fingers make contact.

Nothing breaks.

I don’t scream. She doesn’t pull away.

We both stare at her hand on my arm, wide-eyed, as if waiting for something terrible to happen.

When it doesn’t, I laugh again—soft and breathless. Tears prick at my eyes before I can stop them.

“I’m not a monster,” I whisper.

Elira looks at me like the answer is obvious. “Of course you’re not.”

I cling to that moment like a lifeline.

***

But secrets never stay secret in palaces.

The whispers start again, low and sharp. A servant asks too many questions. A guard watches Elira more closely than before. One day, she doesn’t come at all.

The next day, she returns with bruises on her wrist, half-hidden beneath her sleeve.

I stare at them, my chest tightening. “What happened?”

She hesitates. “I was told to remember my place.”

Anger flares hot and sudden, so intense it makes my vision blur. The warmth inside me surges, responding instantly, eagerly.

“Don’t,” she says quickly, sensing it. “Please.”

I force myself to breathe, to push it down. The pressure recedes, but it leaves me shaking.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

“You didn’t do anything,” she says, echoing Maximilian’s words.

She squeezes my hand gently, just once, before standing. “I should go.”

I watch her leave, fear crawling up my spine.

That night, I lie awake staring at the ceiling, listening for her footsteps that never come. The palace feels colder without her voice filling the space.

I realize something then, with a clarity that frightens me.

If kindness can be punished, then it is dangerous.

And if Elira can be hurt just for treating me like a person, then whatever lives inside me does not just affect me anymore.

It reaches outward.

And it takes.

I curl inward, clutching my arms to my chest, and pray—truly pray—that the world will not make me choose between being alone and being dangerous.

Because I am beginning to suspect that it will.