CHAPTER 173: WHAT HAPPENED HERE?

Liora stared at the script carved into the bottom corner of the tapestry. Her pulse quickened. The name was unmistakably hers, woven into prophecy like a thread waiting to be tugged and beside it, a date that had not yet come to pass.

Behind her, the air shifted.

Lucien’s presence loomed before she even heard his footsteps. She felt it in the way the room stilled, like everything within it had learned to listen to him. He didn’t speak immediately. Instead, he stepped closer, his gaze falling where hers was locked. His voice came low, smooth as velvet fraying at the edges.

"You shouldn’t be here alone."

Her breath hitched. "And yet, here you are."

A dangerous quiet settled between them, thick with unsaid things. The glow from the lanterns cast shadows over his face, but his eyes stayed on her dark, consuming, as if trying to read what lay beyond her silence.

"You read it, didn’t you?" he asked, his voice brushing her like silk against skin. "Your name."

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

Lucien moved closer, his fingers brushing the edge of the tapestry before dropping to her wrist. He didn’t pull her away. He just held her there, as though grounding her. Or maybe, grounding himself. His touch was warm... It was too warm. And when she looked up at him, the tension snapped.

"You knew about this?" She whispered, stepping in too close now, barely a breath between them. "All along?"

His jaw clenched. "I knew you would come."

Her pulse stuttered. "And what happens after that date?"

Lucien leaned in, his lips grazing the shell of her ear. "That’s the part I haven’t decided yet."

A sharp inhale escaped her.

Her hand moved unthinking, searching and met the fabric of his shirt, curling there as if tethering herself to him. His fingers rose to her chin, tilting it up slowly, giving her time to pull away.

She didn’t.

His mouth brushed against hers, tentative, then firm like a question that already knew the answer. The kiss was nothing like the man who had once looked at her like she was a complication. It was slow. Deep. Possessive. His other hand found the small of her back and pulled her closer. Too close. The prophecy forgotten, the war outside these stone walls irrelevant for that moment, there was only heat and breath and a dangerous kind of longing neither of them had meant to unleash.

Then Lucien pulled back, eyes unreadable again.

"You still have time to walk away, Liora."

But her fingers stayed curled in his shirt.

"I don’t want to."

The fire had not dulled when morning came, if anything, it had shifted, coiled low beneath her skin like a sleeping beast. Liora stood at the edge of the window, watching the courtyard below as the light crept across the stone, golden and indifferent. Her shift clung to her thighs, rumpled from a restless night, and yet sleep had never truly come. How could it, when her thoughts spun with the way his mouth had tasted of wine and vengeance... when his hands had mapped her like he was searching for something he’d long forgotten?

Behind her, the bed creaked softly. She didn’t turn.

"I thought you might have disappeared," Lucien said, voice still husky from sleep. Or was it from restraint?

Liora swallowed. "I nearly did."

She heard the rustle of fabric as he rose, then the sound of bare feet crossing the floor. A moment later, the heat of him curled around her again...just like last night. He didn’t touch her, not yet, but his presence was a gravity she couldn’t escape. Not now. Not when she’d already stepped into his orbit.

"That tapestry," she said finally. "What it said... if it’s real...."

"It is real." His voice hardened just slightly. "Every thread in that fabric is bound to something. Or someone."

She turned to face him, jaw tense. "Then why didn’t you stop me?"

He looked at her for a long moment. "Because you needed to see it. You needed to understand what you’re tied to... what we’re both tied to."

Her breath caught as his hand reached up to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear. The gesture was gentle, but the intensity in his eyes was not.

"What does the prophecy say, Lucien?" she whispered.

His gaze dropped to her lips before returning to her eyes. "It says we destroy each other."

Liora blinked, the weight of those words dragging down her chest. "Then why..."

"Because," he said, stepping forward, "if we’re destined to burn, I’d rather set the fire with you than be left in the ashes alone."

His lips met hers again, rougher this time tinted with desperation, and edged with something deeper than desire. And when he lifted her up into his arms, carrying her back to the bed, the tapestry’s threads whispered in the silence above them. Fate could wait.

Their breaths mingled, bodies tangled in defiance of everything that had kept them apart until now. The touch was not just hunger; it was understanding, unspoken confessions passed between mouths and fingertips. Liora clung to him like he was the last truth left in a world built on lies, and Lucien held her like he could delay the doom that loomed over them just by anchoring her to him.

Later, when the fire had softened into something quieter, when the only sounds were the lazy drift of wind beyond the curtains and their heartbeats slowly returning to rhythm, Liora lay with her head on his chest, his arm wrapped protectively around her waist.

She didn’t speak. Neither did he.

Because what could words do now, when they had already said the most dangerous thing two people could say with nothing but touch?

But her fingers found the small scar near his collarbone. Traced it.

"What happened here?" she asked softly.

Lucien didn’t answer right away. His jaw tightened before he spoke.

"My brother," he said. "The night before my disgrace was sealed. It was meant to be a warning."

Her body tensed, but she didn’t move away.

"And you still protect him," she whispered, half in disbelief.

Lucien let out a breath that wasn’t quite a laugh. "I protect the crown, not the man. There’s a difference."

Silence again.

Until she tilted her head and asked, "And what if the crown is the one who doomed you?"

He met her gaze then, sharp and piercing.

"Then I take it back. Piece by bloody piece."

His words lit something in her, a dangerous fire that wasn’t so different from her own.

Outside the door, there was the faintest sound, a breath too loud to be the wind.

Lucien’s arm slid from her waist and reached for the dagger tucked beneath the pillow in one swift, silent move. Liora sat up, instantly alert. The warmth of intimacy vanished, replaced by a cold tension threading through the room.

He placed a finger to his lips, then moved toward the door, every step calculated.

Another sound, footsteps, retreating.

Lucien yanked the door open, only to find the corridor empty, save for the flutter of a curtain at the end.

Someone had been there.

Someone had seen.

And nothing would be the same now.

A shadow slipped silently through the eastern corridor, heart thundering not just from what she had seen but from what it meant.

Layla Valcour.

The hem of her night robe whispered against the cold stone as she darted back toward her own quarters, her mind racing faster than her feet. She hadn’t meant to spy. She’d only come to speak to Liora...to confront her, perhaps...about the rumors that had begun to spread like rot beneath the polished floors of the palace.

But what she had seen...

Lucien’s mouth on Liora’s skin.

His hand tangled in her hair.

The way they moved together, like sin and salvation rolled into one.

Layla’s face burned, not with jealousy, but with something sharper. Panic.

She had been so certain that Liora was just a pawn, sent here to distract Lucien, maybe soften him so the court could finish him off quietly. But this... this was no calculated ploy. This was real. Dangerous. Twisting into something no one had predicted.

And if Queen Dowager Lilian knew... If Alden found out...

Layla slowed, her hand clutching the corner of a column for support. The weight of what she now knew settled over her like a shroud.

This could ruin everything.

The power she’d fought for. The quiet alliances she had nurtured. The delicate balance she held between being a princess and being a strategist.

If Lucien and Liora joined hands, not just in body but in purpose... they could become unstoppable.

Unless someone stopped them first.

She stood there for another heartbeat, breath uneven, then pushed off the wall and disappeared into the west wing, where secrets were currency and loyalty always came at a cost.