In the following days, Cassian began to see it—no, feel it. The tension around Elvianne wasn't just fear of servitude. It was layered. Old. Worn into her bones.
Something had happened to her.
He started speaking to those who had worked near the Voss estate for years. Older staff. Forgotten clerks. Former nannies and footmen who were dismissed without explanation. Most offered nothing useful. But one, an elderly herbalist who once supplied potions to the estate, mentioned something strange.
"A young girl came in once," she said. "Noble posture, but no memory of her name. I gave her calming tea. Elara didn't like her talking."
Cassian's attention sharpened. No memory?
A clue.
He shifted his focus to old palace ledgers. It was slow, mind-numbing work—flipping through lists of noble births, missing persons, magical registries—but then, buried deep in the archives, he found it.
An unnamed girl.
Six years old. Found near a border town. Suspected size manipulation magic. No family could be located. The case was closed within a month. The final note read: Transferred to private care by noble request.
There was no name attached to the noble request, but the handwriting matched that of a now-retired Voss steward.
That was enough.
Elvianne hadn't been born into servitude—she had been placed into it. Disguised, erased, and used.
He didn't go to her immediately. Cassian knew better than to confront a cornered animal—or a frightened girl with a rare power. Instead, he watched her. The way she flinched when spoken to. How she barely reacted unless directly commanded. Her silence was a shield, not submission.
And then, one evening, he found her alone in the palace gardens.
"You're not just a maid," he said bluntly.
She froze. Her hands clutched the edge of her skirt like it might keep her rooted to the ground.
"I don't know what you're talking about," she whispered.
Cassian took a slow step forward. "I think you do."
Her eyes met his for the briefest moment. Silver-blue, stormy and haunted.
"I'm not your problem, Your Highness," she murmured.
Cassian tilted his head. "You weren't supposed to be. But now I've seen you."
She stiffened, silent again, and he let her be. He turned and left with just one sentence:
"I'll find the truth. Whether you want me to or not."
Back at the Dorne estate, Annabelle sat with a pastry half-eaten, watching her family laugh at a joke she hadn't heard. Her thoughts were miles away. Something was happening. The air in the capital had changed. Tension gathered like storm clouds.
Everyone else still saw Elvianne as just a girl in rags.
But Annabelle had seen it in the prince's eyes. He didn't look at her like a servant.
He looked at her like a mystery.
And Cassian Sinclair never left a mystery unsolved.