Chapter 45: What Hurts More

Naya stayed quiet for most of the ride back to the palace, the folded remnants of Marissa’s letter tucked against her side. Ronan didn’t press her, letting the silence stretch as long as she needed it.

"I don’t know what hurts more," she said eventually. "Finding out my family lied to me, or realizing they might have planned my entire life before I was old enough to have a say in any of it."

"You don’t owe me answers tonight," Ronan said.

"Why are you being so patient with me?"

"Because you’ve spent your whole life having other people decide what happens next," he said. "I’m not going to be one more person doing that to you."

Naya let the words settle, understanding that his restraint wasn’t distance. It was deliberate, a choice to hand her control rather than take it for himself the way everyone else in her life always had.

They arrived at the palace to find Darius waiting near the entrance, his expression grim enough that Naya’s stomach tightened before he’d said a single word.

"The breach was worse than we initially thought," he said, leading them toward the restricted wing. "It wasn’t a random search. Specific shelves were targeted."

"What was taken?" Ronan asked.

"Nothing valuable in the traditional sense," Darius said. "Only records connected to old bloodlines. And everything tied to Naya’s birth."

"They knew exactly where to look," Naya said.

"That’s what concerns me most," Darius said. "Whoever did this had detailed knowledge of the archive’s layout. This wasn’t a stranger stumbling into a restricted room."

Ronan’s jaw tightened. He ordered the palace quietly sealed and instructed Darius to continue the investigation without alerting the wider court, unwilling to let panic spread before they understood what they were actually facing.

Darius led Naya to the remaining genealogy records shortly after, laying an older copy beside the current one for comparison. Naya scanned both versions carefully, her breath catching as she reached the section detailing her own family line.

Her parents’ names remained exactly where they should be. Elara’s entry sat intact beside them, unchanged and untouched.

The space where Naya’s name should have appeared was blank.

"They didn’t just hide who I am," she said slowly. "They erased me from my own family’s history."

"Why would anyone go to such lengths?" she asked, looking up at Ronan.

He didn’t have an answer ready, and the absence of one unsettled her more than a wrong guess would have.

Later that evening, Ronan found her alone in their quarters and sat across from her, something careful in his expression.

"There’s something I should have told you sooner," he said. "During my father’s reign, there was a classified directive concerning a surviving female child. I found the reference days ago. I wanted to verify it before bringing it to you."

Naya felt something sharp twist in her chest. "You kept that from me?"

"I didn’t want to hand you another half-truth," Ronan said. "Not after everything your family has already put you through."

"I don’t need protection from information," Naya said. "I need you to trust me with it, even if it’s incomplete."

Ronan held her gaze. "You’re right."

He didn’t defend himself further, and Naya appreciated that more than an elaborate explanation would have offered her. It was small, but it mattered, another quiet step in learning how to trust each other properly.

The archive breach couldn’t remain hidden from the court for long, and by the following morning, Ronan had called an emergency council session to address it directly. Several nobles pressed hard for answers, demanding to know how the security of the royal archives had been compromised so completely.

Naya attended beside him, her spine straight despite the weight of everything unresolved beneath the surface.

One councilman, choosing his words with obvious care, suggested the breach might somehow connect back to the Ripley family specifically.

Naya didn’t flinch. "The investigation is ongoing," she said calmly, her voice carrying clearly across the chamber. "If anyone here has relevant information, I expect them to provide it directly to the crown rather than speculating in open council."

Ronan let her answer stand without adding anything of his own, allowing her to hold that authority entirely on her own terms.

Once the council session ended, Naya’s composure finally cracked slightly as they walked back through the corridor.

"I hate this," she said. "Every discovery about my own life keeps involving someone else deciding what I’m allowed to know."

"I’m trying to change that," Ronan said.

"Do you actually trust me enough to tell me everything you find? Even the parts that frighten you?"

"Yes."

"Even if the truth makes me dangerous?"

"You were dangerous when I met you," Ronan said. "You just didn’t know it yet."

Naya laughed despite herself, the tension in her chest easing slightly at the unexpected humor. Ronan’s hand found her waist, drawing her closer, and for a moment the weight of everything pressing down on them faded into something quieter.

They nearly closed the last distance between them before Naya pulled back, breathless. "We have an entire kingdom falling apart around us."

"I’m aware," Ronan said, though he didn’t look entirely convinced that mattered more than the moment they’d almost had.

Darius interrupted before either of them could decide, appearing at the end of the corridor with another discovery in hand.

"I found a duplicate archive index," he said. "It wasn’t stored with the genealogy records. Someone filed it separately, deliberately."

"What does it say?" Naya asked.

"It references your birth," Darius said. "But not under your name. Under a designation."

"A designation, not a person’s name?" Ronan asked.

"An old bloodline designation," Darius confirmed. "The same one that appears in records connected to the abandoned village."

Naya’s breath caught as understanding settled over her, cold and sudden. The elder in that village hadn’t recognized her because she resembled someone he’d known. He’d recognized what she was connected to, some deeper thread tying her to that place long before she’d ever set foot there herself.

Before she could fully process the weight of it, Mira arrived with a sealed message, her expression careful.

"This came from Ripley territory," she said, handing it to Naya. "From your father."

Naya broke the seal and unfolded the note, her jaw tightening as she read the two words written across it.

Stop searching.

Fury rose hot and immediate, her father’s arrogance stretching even now to command her from a distance he had no right to claim over her life anymore.

Then she looked more closely at the seal itself, something about it striking her as unfamiliar.

"This isn’t his usual seal," she said, handing it to Ronan.

He studied the imprint carefully, his expression shifting into something sharper.

"I recognize this," he said slowly. "It’s an older Ripley family mark. Older than your father’s generation."

Naya’s stomach dropped as the implication settled in. Someone else in her family, someone who had come before Godric, might have known about her identity long before her father had ever taken control of hiding it.

The mystery, rather than narrowing, had just grown wider than either of them had expected.