The Hidden Heiress Is Back

Rain whispered against the cobblestones of Winlow Street, where the lanterns flickered like secrets trying to stay alive in the night. The city was built on old bones-narrow alleys and ivy-draped manors, secrets sealed behind heavy doors and family crests no longer polished. Among the well-heeled families of Halverton, power passed down through bloodlines like antique silver-hoarded, weighed, and hidden. And somewhere amid all this, where the scent of wet stone and jasmine hung heavy, the last living daughter of House Trelling lived without her name.

No one in the city knew her as Seraphina Trelling anymore. Not the market vendors, not the cathedral staff she occasionally assisted, and certainly not the neighbors who waved politely but never looked her directly in the eyes. To them, she was just Faye Whitlow-a girl with too many books and too little conversation.

Seraphina-Faye now-adjusted the worn hood of her gray cloak as she stepped into the drizzle, clutching a parcel of letters bound with string. The morning was cold, the kind that gnawed at the bones instead of the skin, and the bakery's warmth called to her. But she walked past it.

There were rules. Quiet ones. Rules like: Don't linger. Don't draw notice. Don't ask questions about the estate at the hill's edge.

She crossed Greystone Bridge, pausing for a breath as the mist rose off the river below. From here she could see it in the distance-Trelling House. It sat like a mausoleum, gray and grand, with its towers piercing the morning fog and windows that watched the city like eyes that never slept. Seraphina hadn't set foot there in ten years.

The last time she had crossed its threshold, she was thirteen and barefoot, her mother bleeding out on the white marble floor, her father bellowing like a wounded beast as the guards dragged him away.

She had run. And someone had hidden her.

A knock from behind startled her. She turned sharply.

"Beg your pardon, miss," a young boy said, brushing past her on the bridge with a satchel of apples. He barely met her eyes. No one ever did. She offered him a tight smile and continued walking.

The letters went to Madame Ennis at the bookbindery, who always gave Faye a crooked grin and a pouch of dried lavender in return.

"You look pale, girl," Ennis muttered, rubbing a cloth over her ink-stained hands. "You seen the postings?"

Faye hesitated. "What postings?"

Ennis looked around before leaning in. "There's a bounty. Not one of the usual sort. A private one-anonymous. Offering five hundred crowns for the name of a girl with violet eyes."

Faye's spine turned to ice. She forced a chuckle. "Sounds like a poem."

Ennis didn't smile. "Not a poem. A warning. Keep your hood up."

Faye nodded, her heart hammering against her ribs as she left the shop. She took the back alley home, weaving through tight passageways and broken fences until she reached the modest stone cottage behind Saint Myra's Cloister. She lived alone, save for an old cat named Rook and a ghost that visited her dreams.

Inside, she bolted the door, lit a single lantern, and sank into the chair by the hearth. The flames offered no comfort. Violet eyes. How many people had those? How many girls had once been whispered about at grand galas, the talk of the court because of that rare Trelling trait?

Only one.

Seraphina stood and peeled back the cloth covering the mirror above the mantel. Her reflection stared back-pale skin, ink-black hair, and eyes like crushed amethysts. Her mother used to call them "royal eyes."

She hadn't heard the name "Seraphina Trelling" in years, not even from her own lips. But now someone was speaking it. Or trying to.

That night, the dream returned. It always did when the past stirred.

She stood at the edge of a lake ringed with lanterns, a soft voice calling her name from the mist. Not Faye. Seraphina. She turned in the dream to see her mother-alive, whole, dressed in the blue silk gown she wore the night she died.

"You must remember," her mother said, voice like falling leaves. "Before they come."

Seraphina reached for her, but her mother turned to water and was gone.

She awoke before dawn, breathless and cold.

By midmorning, she'd made her way to the cloister's library, where she helped with cataloguing in exchange for access to the restricted histories. It was Sister Elna who met her at the door, her soft face creased with concern.

"There was a man here earlier," the sister said. "Asking after you. Or... someone like you."

Faye's pulse spiked. "What do you mean?"

"He asked about a girl who assists with the ledgers. Said he was looking for a cousin. But when I offered to take a message, he disappeared."

"Did he leave a name?"

Sister Elna shook her head. "Tall, dark coat, gloves despite the heat. Eyes like glass. Not the kind who means well."

Faye tried to breathe slowly, calmly. "If he returns... don't tell him anything."

"I won't, child." The sister reached out and brushed a wisp of hair from Faye's face. "But be careful. I feel a storm coming."

Faye offered a ghost of a smile before slipping into the shadows of the archive.

She was no longer safe.

She found the note that evening, tucked inside her copy of The Treatises of House Law-a dusty tome she kept beneath her floorboards. It hadn't been disturbed in years. But now, the binding was cracked.

She unfolded the parchment with shaking hands. A single sentence, written in an ink she somehow recognized.

They know you live. You have until the blood moon. Come to Trelling House.

There was no signature. There didn't need to be.

Only one person still alive wrote with that silver-tinged ink. Her father.

Lord Auren Trelling.

A traitor. A murderer. A man locked away behind the northern mountain walls-unless he had escaped.

She hadn't spoken his name aloud in a decade. Not since the trial. Not since the whispers of rebellion, of stolen funds and secret armies. Not since the fire that killed the last of the royal line-except her.

The hidden heiress.

For hours she sat in silence, staring at the flickering shadows on the walls, the note crumpled in her hand.

The blood moon rose in five days.

She could ignore it. Burn the note. Disappear again.

But some part of her-small and burning and stubborn-refused. She had lived her life running from ghosts. Maybe it was time she faced them.

At dawn, she packed a satchel: one change of clothes, a knife, a flask of bitterleaf, and a small, silver ring shaped like a raven. It had once belonged to her mother. The symbol of House Trelling.

She stepped out into the pale morning, locked the cottage door behind her, and turned toward the hill.

Toward Trelling House.

Toward the name she had buried.