CHAPTER 284: CHAPTER 284: DEJA VU

Trevor turned the tablet toward him, the dossier glowing cold against the dim study.

The man’s face filled the screen. Dark hair slicked neatly back, eyes the color of a frozen sea, flat in a way that made them more dangerous than fire. He was young, the same age as Dax at most.

Benedict Almare.

Lucas’s fingers tightened against the edge of the desk. The name had meant nothing moments ago, but the face...

"Do you know him?" Trevor asked patiently.

Lucas’s breath hitched, and for a moment he couldn’t answer. His pulse thrummed against his throat, every instinct screaming familiarity where there should have been none. He didn’t feel the same dread as with Christian Velloran; no, it was totally different.

The name was new. The face was not.

"I..." His voice came out low, almost unsteady, before he forced steel back into it. "No. I mean, I didn’t meet him until now, this life or the other, but..." He leaned closer, eyes locked on the man’s image, cold unease spreading through him like frost. "I feel like I’ve seen him before. Like he’s been standing at the edge of the room all along, waiting for me to notice."

Trevor’s violet gaze narrowed, his expression unreadable. "Deja vu?"

Lucas straightened and looked out the window to the Palatine Capital, playing with the crystal tumbler. "No, it’s something I can’t put my finger on."

Trevor studied him for a long beat, his fingers drumming once against the tablet before stilling. "Then trust that instinct. Men who feel familiar without a name attached are rarely strangers. Especially not to you."

Lucas’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t turn back to the screen. The city stretched out beneath the window, lit like a constellation caught in glass, but even there he thought he could feel those pale eyes staring through him. "It’s not memory," he said quietly. "It’s weight. As if he already knows me, and I just haven’t caught up."

Trevor’s mouth curved, humorless. "Well, we will make sure that he never reaches you."

Lucas didn’t question it. He never had. If Trevor said Benedict would be stopped, then kingdoms would fall before that promise broke. The man could level empires for him, and Lucas knew it.

So he didn’t doubt; he only tightened his grip on the crystal tumbler, eyes flicking once more to the dossier glowing faintly on the desk. "Good," he said softly, though there was steel threading through the word. "Because this one isn’t a shadow I want at my back."

—

The next day, Trevor was a ghost even in his own house. His shadow lingered only in the stack of files covering the polished desk, in the unanswered calls piling up across three devices, and in the relentless footsteps of aides shuttling back and forth between his office and the palace chambers.

He was hostage to his work, bound tighter by schedules and briefings than any chain could hold.

Lucas, by contrast, had been left alone to meet the two matriarchs at Palatine Palace.

Windstone stalked at his side, immaculate as ever, every step measured like the tick of a clock. His pale green eyes flicked toward Lucas with a weight that wasn’t disapproval of the boy himself; no, Windstone liked him well enough, perhaps more than he admitted. But his eyebrows had been permanently raised these past days, every arch a silent sermon about paper bags smuggled into the mansion and the grease that had no business near marble floors or imperial upholstery.

Lucas didn’t miss it, of course. He had the gall to look faintly amused whenever Windstone’s brows climbed higher, as though daring him to confiscate a contraband burger out of sheer principle.

And on Lucas’s other side, Mia.

She looked as though she’d been dropped into a lion’s den and only now realized it. Her hands twisted together, her eyes darting to the glittering chandeliers and gilded mirrors with the helpless air of someone convinced she didn’t belong. She leaned closer to Lucas, her whisper sharp with nerves.

"Why am I even here? I’m not a noble, I don’t know the rules, and everyone keeps staring like I’m about to spill wine on the floor."

Lucas’s lips curved faintly, though his eyes stayed forward, cool and unreadable. "Because you’re useful."

Mia blinked, scandalized. "Useful? How..."

The words died in her throat as the heavy doors opened and two figures swept into the hall like storms draped in silk.

Serathine, her red hair pinned high and gleaming under the light, her amber eyes bright with the fire of someone who had already won every game before it began. And beside her, Cressida, her silver hair immaculate, her presence as sharp as had never been dulled with age.

The two matriarchs of the empire, rivals in courtesy and conquest, entered the palace in tandem.

Mia’s eyes went wide. "Oh no."

Lucas finally glanced at her then, his mouth curving into something that was half-smile, half-warning. "Now you understand. You’re not here to impress them." His gaze shifted toward the approaching women, the weight of two dynasties bearing down at once. "You’re here to distract them."

Mia froze, realization crashing over her too late, her pulse hammering as the duchess and dowager queen closed in like predators.

Windstone only arched his eyebrows higher, though this time, Lucas knew it wasn’t at Mia’s nerves. No, that look clearly said: ’If you think you’re smuggling fried chicken into the palace today, Grand Duchess, you’re gravely mistaken.’

The two women arrived in tandem, their presence filling the vaulted corridor like the sweep of two storms colliding.

The two women arrived in tandem, their presence filling the vaulted corridor like the sweep of two storms colliding.

"Lucas." Serathine, Duchess of D’Argente, spoke first. Her red hair gleamed under the palace light, her amber eyes carrying both fondness and calculation. "At last I can see my son again."

Behind her, Cressida, Marchioness of Fitzgeralt, carried herself with the implacable sharpness of someone who had ruled her family far longer than most of its heirs. Silver hair, eyes like polished steel, and a presence that seemed to strip rooms down to silence. "And into the palace, no less. Trevor is wasting no time putting you forward."

Lucas inclined his head, perfectly measured. His half-smile didn’t falter, though the weight of two dynasties pressing in at once would have unnerved lesser men. "I would hate to keep the Capital waiting."

Mia shifted at his side, tense under the dual gaze, until Serathine’s eyes landed on her. They softened faintly, though the curve of her mouth hinted at amusement. "And this must be Mia. I was wondering when I would meet the name that keeps flaring up in that group chat."

Cressida’s lips thinned, though her eyes lingered on Mia longer than expected. "Hmmm... as the sister of future Queen of Saha, you should be polished."