The archives were never silent.

They whispered.

Callie felt it the moment she stepped inside: the way the air grew heavier against her lungs, the way the scent of dust, old leather, and forgotten ink clung to her skin as if it recognized her. This wing of the palace was older than the others, its stones worn smooth by generations of secrets no longer spoken aloud.

She had been assigned here without explanation.

Without reprimand. Without warning.

Just a simple order delivered by a junior butler who wouldn't meet her gaze.

Organize the family records. Nothing more.

Nothing more, she knew, was never true.

She adjusted her apron and began.

Shelves loomed above her, crammed with ledgers, parchments, boxes sealed with crests faded by time. Each was a fragment of the palace's memory: marriages, alliances, debts, disappearances. She worked methodically, her hands steady despite the tightness in her chest. Every few minutes, her thoughts betrayed her.

Darian.

How he'd left her the