Fated Eclipse: The Illegitimate Princess And Her Alpha Suitors

Chapter 151: Words Behind Velvet Walls

Lyria’s POV

The hall had been arranged with deliberate precision.

The suitor candidates stood at one end, their positions measured and formal, as though even where they placed their feet had been decided in advance. And the Moon candidates were placed at a different position too.

A woman approached me almost immediately upon my entry.

She was part of the guards, her bearing straight, her expression neutral—obviously years of practice. She inclined her head, gestured for me to follow, and led me toward a designated space where I was to wait for my turn.

I followed without question.

The space she brought me to was not uncomfortable. There was a chair, a clear line of sight to the interview taking place at the centre of the hall, and enough distance from the others that I could observe without being observed too closely in return.

Or so I thought.

I had barely settled when I felt like someone was watching me and with disgust at that.

I turned.

Blue eyes met mine across the distance of the hall.

Jacinta.

She sat at the centre of the room, poised and luminous in the way she always managed to appear when there were eyes upon her and there were many eyes upon her now. The interviewer sat before her, composed and attentive, and the rest of the hall gave the impression of polite, measured observation.

But Jacinta’s gaze was not on the interviewer.

It was on me.

To anyone unsuspecting, it might have appeared as nothing—a glance, perhaps, a moment of distraction. Perhaps she had simply looked toward the doors when movement caught her attention, and her eyes had happened to land somewhere near me.

But I had spent enough years learning to read what people did not say aloud to mistake it now.

That was not a glance.

That was a glare.

Controlled, concealed, and entirely intentional.

She hated that I was here.

I held her gaze for precisely one moment—long enough to acknowledge that I had seen it, not long enough to give her the satisfaction of a reaction—then I turned back toward the interview.

I could hardly blame her, really.

Not entirely.

Whatever feelings I held toward Jacinta—and they were not warm—I understood that from her perspective, my presence was an intrusion. I had not chosen this. I had not asked to be here. But here I was, standing in a room that she had believed would never contain me, and nothing I felt about that would change the fact that she resented every breath I drew in it.

That was not my fault.

It simply was not.

I turned my attention properly to the interview.

Jacinta was speaking.

Her words were elaborate, carefully chosen, generously adorned and delivered smoothly, but it was not so smooth as to not know that this had been practiced before a mirror numerous times—or perhaps it was just me who noticed it. Every pause was placed with precision. Every inflection landed where she had intended it to.

She was answering a question about her intentions as a Moon candidate.

”My intention,” she was saying, ”is to fulfil the sacred prophecy as it has been ordained. To stand where duty has placed me, and to ensure that the will of the Crown is honoured without hesitation or deviation.”

She paused, allowing the words to settle.

Mirelle—the interviewer—gave a measured nod, her expression giving away nothing of approval or doubt.

Then she turned slightly to consult her parchment.

And called the next name.

”Duke Marcellus Frostmere.”

I blinked, just slightly.

Lady Mirelle’s eyes showed a flicker of something—surprise, perhaps, swiftly managed—and she turned briefly toward the guard positioned beside her.

The guard gave a small, almost imperceptible shake of his head.

Lady Mirelle’s expression returned to composed neutrality within the span of a breath, and the interview continued as though nothing had occurred.

And though she was quick to cover it up, I suspected she was as surprised as I was, because I was supposed to go next.

Whether that was intentional on the part of the royal family—another small manoeuvre designed to keep me off balance or something else entirely, I could not say with certainty. But the fact that Lady Mirelle herself had appeared briefly surprised suggested that the change had not come from her.

I filed the observation away without allowing it to show on my face.

Meanwhile, the thing in my hand had become increasingly difficult to ignore.

I had been holding the small folded paper since the moment it had been pressed into my palm in the corridor, and though I had managed to keep my expression entirely undisturbed since then, the paper itself seemed to have developed a quality I could only describe as insistent.

It wanted to be read.

More accurately—I wanted to read it.

And so, in a moment when the attention of the hall had shifted entirely toward Duke Frostmere and the interview taking place at its centre, I lowered my gaze and unfolded the paper just enough.

The writing was beautiful.

Not the rushed scrawl of someone pressed for time, but deliberate, each letter shaped with precision.

There were two questions written on the paper.

What are your aims in now coming out as a Moon candidate?

Do you covet your sister’s position?

I read them once.

Then again.

Then I simply stared at them for a moment longer than I should have, because my mind had gone very quiet.

Who had written this?

The boy had not been palace staff; I had been certain of that even in the brief moment of contact. He had been sent, that much was obvious.

But sent by whom?

My gaze moved slowly, as though I were simply surveying the room in the way anyone might, until it landed on Corvin.

He was looking at me.

Or rather, he was looking in my direction and doing a bad job of pretending that he was not.

That same expression was still on his face.

Knowing. Expectant. Edged with something I could not immediately name.

Was he trying to provoke me?

Was this an attempt to unsettle me before my turn—to fill my mind with questions that had no clean answers so that when I finally stood before Lady Mirelle I would be off balance, uncertain, reaching for words that would not come properly?

Or was it something larger?

Another layer of the royal family’s preparation so that I would also be disoriented?

I folded the paper back and returned my attention to the interview without any outward sign that anything had changed.

But my thoughts continued turning.

Do you covet your sister’s position?

I did not have a sister.

I had a girl who had spent years making my life as small and as dark as possible, who had trapped me in shadows and called it my nature, who had set bees on me with royal jelly and flogged me for speaking back and used my mother as a leash.

Whatever Jacinta was to me—she was not a sister.

And the position?

I did not want it. I did not seek it.

But the question itself was the thing.

It was not a question designed to discover the truth. It was a question designed to shape how the truth appeared.

I exhaled very slowly through my nose.

Then I heard his voice. Lucian was being interviewed, and I had almost missed it.