The Future Is Wrong

The carriage had been moving for seven minutes when Caelan finally asked the question Aurelia had been waiting for.

“I’m curious. Why the western archive?”

Aurelia continued looking through the window. The capital passed beyond the glass in flashes of white stone and slate roofs. Merchants crowded the streets beneath striped awnings, delivery carts fought carriages for space, and imperial banners hung lazily from balconies overhead.

Peaceful.

Painfully so.

Aurelia remembered these streets burning.

“Research,” she said.

“On?”

“A private matter, Your Highness.”

“How mysterious.”

“I was hoping you’d find it discouraging.”

“Quite the opposite.”

She glanced at him. Caelan lounged opposite her with one leg crossed over the other, perfectly comfortable despite having invited himself into someone else’s carriage. His sword rested beside him, and the handkerchief remained wrapped around his injured thumb.

“You’ve been looking at my sword,” he said.

“No, I haven’t.”

“Three times.”

Aurelia met his eyes. “You counted?”

“Four.”

Insufferable.

“Do you have nothing important to do?”

“Several things.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I told you. Curiosity.”

“That isn’t an admirable quality in a future emperor.”

Caelan smiled. “An incurious emperor is simply a well-dressed disaster.”

Something about the words felt familiar. Aurelia searched her memories, but whatever she was reaching for slipped away.

Caelan noticed. Of course he did.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“You make a particularly severe face when thinking about nothing.”

“Perhaps I’m gifted.”

“I’ve noticed.”

There was something beneath the words—flirtation, suspicion, perhaps both. With Caelan, it had always been difficult to tell.

He could make a threat sound like a compliment and a confession sound like a joke.

She had once believed she understood him.

Then he had asked her to kill him.

Aurelia curled her fingers beneath her gloves.

Not now.

Minister Vale.

One hour and thirty-six minutes.

That was the problem in front of her.

When the carriage turned onto Bellflower Avenue, Aurelia straightened.

“Stop.”

Caelan blinked. “What?”

“Stop the carriage.”

He tapped twice against the wall. The driver obeyed, and Aurelia stepped into the street before Caelan could ask another question.

Bellflower Avenue looked almost exactly as she remembered. A flower merchant occupied the corner, a baker’s boy hurried between carts, and a watchman argued with an elderly man beside the fountain. Several streets away, the pale dome of the western archive rose above the rooftops.

This was the place.

Minister Vale’s carriage would approach from the north at eleven forty-seven. Traffic would force him to stop near the archive. He would leave the carriage and walk the remaining distance.

An assassin would be waiting beneath a blue awning.

Grey coat. Male, thirties. Knife concealed beneath his right sleeve.

Vale would survive the first strike and die three days later.

Aurelia knew because five years from now, she would investigate his murder herself.

“Lady Aurelia.”

Caelan stepped down behind her.

His knights followed.

She frowned. “I don’t require an escort.”

“That’s unfortunate. You have one.”

“Go home.”

“No.”

Aurelia started walking.

Caelan fell into step beside her. “The archive is east.”

“I know.”

“We’re walking west.”

“I know that too.”

Good. Let him wonder.

Then Aurelia saw the flower cart.

She stopped.

Wrong.

In the investigation sketch, the cart had stood beside the fountain. Today it was against the southern wall.

For a moment, unease crawled beneath her skin.

Then she noticed the sunlight beating down on the western side of the street.

An ordinary variable.

Nothing more.

Aurelia approached the merchant and placed a silver piece on the cart.

The woman’s eyes widened.

“I need you to move this beside the fountain.”

“All of it?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Aurelia paused.

Because in less than an hour an assassin will need this street to escape.

“Better light.”

The merchant looked toward the fountain.

It was very obviously worse light.

Behind Aurelia, Caelan made a suspicious choking sound.

“Something amusing?”

“Nothing whatsoever.”

The merchant took the money.

Over the next fifteen minutes, Aurelia made several more adjustments. She paid a delivery boy to leave an empty handcart beside an alley, convinced a watchman to inspect a paving stone, shifted a pastry stall four feet and moved a bookshop sign six inches into the street.

Caelan watched all of it in increasingly thoughtful silence.

Aurelia preferred him talking.

Talking Caelan was irritating.

Silent Caelan was calculating.

Finally, he stared at the repositioned sign.

“Are we invading something?”

“No.”

“I feel I should have been informed.”

“There.” Aurelia stepped back.

“You moved that six inches.”

“Yes.”

“Strategically?”

She gave him a flat look. “Does everything have to be a joke?”

His smile softened.

“No.”

For some reason, that answer bothered her more.

The western archive rose ahead, enormous white columns supporting a weathered copper roof. Statues of the Seven Founders stood above the entrance.

Aurelia glanced at them.

Then stopped.

Seven statues.

Eight columns.

She counted again.

Eight.

The final column supported nothing.

No statue. No inscription.

Nothing at all.

“Aurelia?”

Later.

She checked the clocktower.

Eleven thirty-one.

Sixteen minutes.

Her gaze swept the square.

Blue awning.

Grey coat.

There.

The man stood beside a map seller, average height, brown hair, forgettable face. His right arm remained unnaturally close to his body.

Exactly as the report described.

Aurelia’s pulse slowed.

Found you.

She started toward him.

Caelan caught her wrist.

Her body reacted before her mind did. She twisted sharply, forcing him to release her.

The two Imperial Knights behind them stiffened.

Caelan’s expression remained pleasant.

His eyes did not.

“Where are you going?”

“To buy a map.”

“No, you’re not.”

Aurelia looked toward the assassin.

“You’ve spent half an hour rearranging three streets for reasons you refuse to explain,” Caelan continued. “You haven’t entered the archive you supposedly came to visit, and now you’re walking toward a man you’ve been watching for nearly a minute.”

He leaned slightly closer.

“I’m beginning to suspect you don’t care very much about books.”

Despite herself, Aurelia smiled.

“I’m devastated you think so poorly of me.”

“Quite the opposite.”

Eleven thirty-eight.

She needed him out of the way.

“Do you trust me?”

That surprised him.

“Depends.”

“On?”

“What you’re about to ask.”

“Stand beside the fountain.”

His eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“Caelan.”

The name slipped out.

They both went still.

Seventeen-year-old Aurelia did not call him that.

Certainly not in that tone.

Eleven forty-one.

“Please.”

The humor left his face.

After a moment, he walked toward the fountain.

Aurelia exhaled.

Seven minutes.

She positioned herself beside the flower cart and waited.

At eleven forty-six, Minister Vale’s black carriage appeared.

Everything was happening exactly as she remembered.

Except this time, she was here.

The carriage slowed.

The man in grey moved.

Aurelia stepped into his escape route.

He noticed her.

His eyes were blue, calm and professional. He changed direction immediately.

The flower cart blocked him.

He went right.

The delivery cart narrowed the alley, forcing him toward the pastry stall and, beyond it, Caelan’s knights.

Perfect.

The battlefield had been decided before the assassin realized there was one.

Vale stepped from his carriage.

The assassin reached beneath his sleeve.

Metal flashed.

“Minister!”

Vale turned.

Aurelia slammed into him, sending them both to the ground as the knife cut through empty air.

The square erupted.

The assassin spun toward his escape route and found it gone.

Flower cart.

Handcart.

Pastry stall.

Watchman.

Caelan.

For one beautiful second, everything happened exactly as Aurelia intended.

Then the assassin smiled.

His left hand disappeared beneath his coat.

Aurelia’s blood went cold.

No.

He pulled out a compact crossbow.

That wasn’t in the report.

Worse, he wasn’t aiming at Vale.

He was aiming at Caelan.

“DOWN!”

The bolt fired.

Caelan moved far faster than any spoiled prince had a right to, his sword already leaving its sheath, but Aurelia was moving too.

Distance. Angle. Velocity.

Her twenty-six-year-old body knew exactly what to do.

Her seventeen-year-old body almost managed it.

Her footing landed too narrow. Her hip failed to generate the strength she expected, and pain tore through her shoulder as she grabbed the nearest thing she could reach—a wooden shop sign.

She turned.

The bolt struck it with a violent crack.

The impact nearly ripped the wood from her hands.

Aurelia stared at the bolt buried inches from her face.

Right. Younger body. The assassin ran. One knight pursued, but the angle was wrong and way too slow. Aurelia’s hand went toward the dagger beneath her coat.

No.

Too revealing. Something red rolled across the stones near her foot.

Ah, an apple. Aurelia grabbed it and threw. It struck the assassin directly behind the knee. His leg buckled. The Imperial Knight hit him a second later. Aurelia slowly lowered her hand.

Silence.

The entire square was staring at her.

Especially Caelan.

Aurelia looked at the apple rolling innocently across the stones.

Perhaps nobody had noticed.

Caelan’s expression informed her that this hope was delusional.

Minister Vale stumbled upright.

“What in God’s name--”

His guards surrounded him while the captured assassin struggled beneath the knight.

Aurelia barely heard them. There had never been a crossbow. She remembered the investigation perfectly. One attacker. One knife. One target. No attempt on Caelan’s life.

So why had it changed?

The assassin suddenly tore one arm free. A hidden blade flashed. The knight struck him, and blood sprayed across the stones.

One warm drop landed on Aurelia’s glove.

Witness awakened.

Her eyes burned.

No. Not here.

She turned her face away as crimson spread through gold.

Blood carried intention. Not memories or thoughts—only the strongest purpose attached to it.

Aurelia braced herself.

KILL.

That was what she expected.

Instead:

PROTECT.

Her breath caught.

Again.

PROTECT.

Not greed. Not hatred. Not murder.

Desperate, absolute protection.

The same intention she had felt in dying soldiers shielding children with their bodies.

But this man had tried to murder Vale.

He had fired a crossbow at Caelan.

So what was he protecting?

A hand touched her shoulder.

Aurelia spun.

Caelan. “Look at me.”

“No.”

“Aurelia.”

“Not now.”

He went still. Aurelia lowered her hat and waited for the crimson to retreat. Three seconds. Four. Five.

“What happened?” he asked quietly.

“Nothing.”

“You caught a crossbow bolt with a wooden sign.”

“It was mostly the sign.”

“And incapacitated an assassin with an apple.”

“Lucky throw.”

“I see.”

He absolutely did not.

When Aurelia finally looked up, her eyes were gold again.

Caelan watched her carefully.

Before he could say more, Minister Vale approached.

“Lady Veyne.”

Aurelia turned.

Alive.

No blood beneath his ribs. No final words. No funeral.

Alive.

Something inside her loosened.

“I owe you my life,” Vale said, bowing.

A Treasury Minister bowed to a seventeen-year-old girl in the middle of Scholar’s Square.

Aurelia stared at him.

She had done it.

The realization struck harder than the crossbow bolt.

She could change the future.

She could save them.

Lucien. Theron. Her mother. House Veyne.

Caelan.

For the first time since waking, the future did not feel like a grave she was slowly walking toward.

It felt open.

Aurelia smiled.

She didn’t notice Caelan watching her.

He didn’t look away.

Minister Orsen Vale died at seven twenty-three that evening.

Aurelia learned while removing her earrings.

Three urgent knocks sounded at her door. When she opened it, Lucien stood outside.

One look at his face was enough.

“What happened?”

He hesitated.

“The Treasury Minister.”

Her stomach dropped.

“No.”

“He’s dead.”

Aurelia stared at him.

“No.”

“He collapsed after dinner. Poison, apparently.”

“No.”

“Aurelia?”

She was already moving.

She entered her father’s study without knocking. Alaric stood beside the fireplace with a letter in his hand. Seraphine and Theron were there as well.

“Vale,” Aurelia said.

Her father looked at her.

“You heard.”

“How?”

“Poison.”

“When?”

“Seven twenty-three.”

Cold spread through her.

Wrong.

Vale was supposed to survive three days.

He was supposed to die from the knife wound.

She had changed it.

Hadn’t she?

Her father folded the letter.

“There is something else. The physician recorded his final words.”

Aurelia went still.

Somewhere deep inside, she already knew.

Alaric read from the page.

“Tell His Majesty--”

Aurelia whispered the rest.

“--the treasury was never empty.”

Silence.

Her father slowly lowered the letter.

Lucien stared at her. Theron stopped moving. Seraphine’s expression sharpened.

Aurelia heard none of them.

Nine years ago, Orsen Vale had died three days after an assassin’s knife entered his body.

And those had been his exact final words.

She backed away.

There were only two explanations she could find.

Someone else knew what was supposed to happen.

Or the future was correcting itself.

Her gaze drifted toward the dark window. Her reflection stared back, golden-eyed.

For an instant, ruby flickered beneath the gold.

She remembered the assassin’s blood.

PROTECT.

The empty eighth column.

The voice inside the Crown.

And when the world forgets us—

For the first time since waking, Aurelia’s certainty cracked.

She had changed the future.

And somehow, it was still finding its way to the same destination.