If Rowan was the king, then who exactly was the man sitting on the throne all this time?

Rosalind thought to herself as a shiver crawled down her spine.

Rowan was alive, very much alive, and yet Alaric ruled openly as king while everybody in the palace treated Rowan as nothing more than a mere footman.

None of it made sense, and the more Rosalind thought about it, the more uneasy she became.

Something terrible had happened in this palace years ago, something carefully hidden beneath lies and fear, and she was beginning to suspect that Alaric stood at the very center of it all just as he always did.

"Rosalind..." Thalia called from the entrance, seeing that the guards were beginning to regain consciousness and untie the cloths wrapped tightly around their faces. "We need to leave now," she whispered more urgently.

But Rosalind remained frozen where she stood while questions ran in her mind, and Verity was lost in an entirely different world. Seeing the remains inside the glass had ripped open memories she had buried deeply within herself.

The screams returned to her ears once more, and she saw him again in her mind, burning while she stood helplessly watching him cry out in agony. Her eyes became misty as her trembling fingers slowly retrieved the remaining ashes that belonged to him.

"Rosalind, Verity, we have to go now," Thalia whispered again, panic beginning to creep into her voice.

Why were the two of them still there?

The guards finally tore the cloths away from their faces and immediately scrambled to their feet.

"Inside," one of them hissed to the other before both men rushed into the gallery.

Thalia cursed inwardly before bolting deeper into the room just before they could spot her. She hurried toward Rosalind and Verity and pulled both of them sharply behind one of the large pillars hidden in the shadows.

"I was calling both of you," she whispered sharply as she looked between them. "What did you find?" she asked, but their pale expressions alone already told her that whatever they had discovered was worse than expected.

The guards began searching through the gallery carefully, but the place looked empty.

"Hang the portrait back up," one of them ordered while glancing around nervously. "Whoever came in here is still nearby."

The other guard lifted the fallen portrait without paying much attention to it before hanging it back in place. Then both men resumed searching around the gallery, moving cautiously between the displays and pillars.

And then, without warning, footsteps echoed from the entrance.

The king appeared.

Two royal guards followed closely behind him as he walked silently into the gallery, his presence alone making the air feel heavier.

"What is going on here?" Alaric demanded immediately.

The guards searching the room froze in shock before bowing quickly.

"Why are you both inside the gallery instead of guarding it?" Alaric asked coldly.

Behind the pillar, Rosalind, Verity, and Thalia immediately stiffened as fear tightened around their chests. They remained completely silent while listening to the guards answer him.

"Someone entered the gallery, Your Majesty," one of them explained quickly while deliberately leaving out the humiliating part about being knocked unconscious.

Alaric’s eyes narrowed dangerously. "Someone entered under your watch?" he repeated slowly.

The guards immediately began trembling where they stood.

Without another word, Alaric stretched his hand outward and one of the guards behind him placed a sword into his palm. He unsheathed it calmly, and the blade flashed through the air.

The first guard’s head rolled cleanly across the floor.

The second guard widened his eyes in horror, but before he could even process what had happened, Alaric drove the sword directly through his chest. The man collapsed to his knees while choking on blood before Alaric pulled the blade back out and allowed him to fall lifelessly onto the floor.

Silence swallowed the gallery.

The bodyguards standing behind Alaric tried not to show fear, though terror was written plainly across their faces.

Meanwhile, the severed head rolled slowly across the marble floor before stopping directly in front of the pillar where the women hid.

All three of them clamped their hands tightly over their mouths to stop themselves from gasping aloud while their hearts pounded violently in fear.

Alaric calmly cleaned the blood from his sword as though nothing unusual had just occurred.

Then he finally spoke. "I know you’re here," he said evenly. "It would be wiser for you to show yourselves now rather than force me to come looking myself."

Behind the pillar, the three women exchanged terrified glances while trying desperately to steady their breathing.

"At the count of three," Alaric continued lazily, "if you are not standing before me, you will regret ignoring my generosity."

"Three."

No movement came.

"Two."

His eyes slowly traveled across the dark gallery while silence stretched through the hall.

Panic struck all three women at once as they looked at each other again.

"One."

Immediately they stumbled out from behind the pillar together.

Alaric’s narrowed gaze landed on them instantly while they stood there breathing heavily, unable to hide the fear written across their faces.

Slowly, his lips curled into a faint smirk. "And what exactly do we have here?" he asked while his eyes shifted from one woman to the next.

They were all confused and shocked as to why he was here. The king was supposed to still be locked away inside his chambers recovering from whatever madness had overtaken him, yet here he stood directly before them. Rosalind’s eyes briefly moved toward the dead guards on the floor before dread crept through her body at the terrifying thought that they could easily be next.

"I’m certain none of you expected me to appear here tonight," Alaric mused calmly. "Yet here I am. I disappear for only a short while and suddenly the palace begins falling into disorder."

One of the spies Alaric had planted around the palace had reported strange movements through the halls late into the night, at an hour when everybody was meant to be asleep, and the trail had led directly toward the private gallery. At first Alaric had assumed they were thieves, and in the state he was already in, he had been more than ready to make an example out of them.

Even while in his chambers, the palace was still meant to remain under his control. Whether he appeared in public or not, nobody was allowed to move as they pleased inside his domain.