Chapter 2 - The Royal ArchivistThe bell above the bakery door chimed softly, breaking the thick silence that had settled between Thomas Wycliffe and me. Outside, the Charleston afternoon sun cast long, golden beams across the glass display case filled with my morning cinnamon rolls, but inside, time felt as though it had completely stopped.
I stared down at the faded black-and-white photograph resting on my flour-dusted counter.
In the picture, a young woman with my exact jawline and deep, piercing eyes stood regally beside an elderly statesman. Around her left wrist was a silver-and-sapphire braided cuff—the exact twin of the antique bracelet currently resting against my own pulse.
“That’s... that’s impossible,” I whispered, my voice trembling as I gripped the edge of the wooden counter. “My mother raised me in a small cottage in Savannah. She was a seamstress. She told me her parents died in a fire when she was a child.”
Thomas Wycliffe looked up at me, his eyes shining with unshed tears.
“Your mother lied, Onyinye,” the old archivist said gently, adjusting his wire-rimmed glasses. “Or rather, she hid you to keep you alive. Amelia Aveline—whom you knew as Amelia Carter—was the true reigning princess of the House of Aveline, the sovereign European duchy that disappeared from international maps twenty-five years ago amidst a violent coup.”
My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. “A coup? By whom?”
“By the Regency Council,” Thomas replied, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “Led by your very own prospective mother-in-law’s family: the Ashbournes. Celeste Ashbourne’s brother, Lord Richard Ashbourne, orchestrated the assassination of your grandfather and the exile of your royal line. They believed your mother perished in the fire that destroyed the North Wing of the palace. But she escaped with the royal signet bracelet—the very one on your wrist.”
I looked down at the silver band. It wasn't just a sentimental trinket from a flea market; it was the key to a stolen throne.
And Celeste Ashbourne—the woman who had just slid a fifty-thousand-dollar check across her dining table to humiliate a poor Charleston baker—was the sister of the man who had murdered my family.
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A cold, fierce surge of adrenaline washed away every trace of fear.
“They thought they burned the royal bloodline out of existence,” I said slowly, a dangerous smile touching my lips. “They’re about to find out the ashes still bite.”
