THE EMPRESS I FORGOT

Chapter 6: The Woman in the Forbidden Portrait

The palace servant lunged directly at Julian before he could even reach the balcony doors.

Julian barely managed to turn aside as a bright steel blade flashed beneath the assassin's sleeve, cutting violently through the fine fabric of his formal coat. He stumbled backward against the cold stone railing, and the folded note slipped from his fingers, fluttering silently into the dark gardens below. The attacker advanced without making a sound, his golden eyes fixed intently on Julian's exposed throat.

“Your mother sends her regards,” the man whispered in a hollow tone.

Julian grabbed a silver serving tray from a nearby table and swung it with all his strength at his attacker's head. The loud impact rang out across the stone balcony, but the servant barely staggered. Instead, he seized Julian viciously by the collar and slammed him back against the railing hard enough to drive every breath from his lungs.

Pain exploded across Julian's injured shoulder, and the golden scar on his palm began to burn with fierce intensity.

He knew that he could stop time again to save himself, but the vivid memory of his mother's face had already vanished from his mind. The terrifying thought of losing yet another piece of her memory horrified him far more than the steel blade currently pressed against his ribs.

He had to find another way to survive.

Julian drove his knee hard into the servant's stomach, twisted his body free, and caught the man's wrist just before the knife could strike down. They struggled desperately beside the edge of the railing, their boots scraping against wet stone, until the servant leaned in close enough for Julian to smell something bitter and acrid on his breath.

“You should have stayed dead,” the man hissed through clenched teeth.

Julian froze in place. “What did you just say?”

The servant's cold expression shifted abruptly. For one brief moment, the golden light in his eyes flickered out, revealing something deeply frightened and almost human beneath the illusion.

Then, a sad smile touched his lips. “Ask the empress what she did during the Thirteenth Hour.”

Without another word, he released his grip on Julian and deliberately stepped backward over the stone railing.

Julian lunged forward to grab him, but his fingers caught nothing except the falling edge of the servant's sleeve. The fabric tore away, and the man vanished instantly into the dark abyss below. A high-pitched scream echoed up from the garden a second later.

The balcony doors burst open as Mira Thorne rushed outside with two armed guards close behind her. Her sword was already drawn, and her sharp eyes swept across the blood staining Julian's coat before settling on the space beyond the railing.

“Where did he go?” she demanded, her blade raised.

“He went over the edge,” Julian replied, struggling to catch his breath.

“Did you get a clear look at his face?”

“Yes, I did, and I would genuinely appreciate it if you explained why a palace servant just tried to cut my throat during my engagement celebration.”

Mira moved swiftly toward the railing and peered into the darkness. The garden below appeared empty, although a dark stain had already begun spreading across the pale stones beneath the balcony.

“That was not a servant,” she noted quietly, her voice dropping.

Julian stared at her in disbelief. “He was wearing palace livery.”

“He wore the face of a servant,” Mira corrected him. “There is a significant difference.”

Mira immediately ordered the guards to secure the balcony entrance, and then she turned her full attention back to Julian. “What exactly did he say to you before he fell?”

Julian hesitated for a moment before repeating the stranger's cryptic final words. At the explicit mention of the Thirteenth Hour, Mira's stoic expression hardened instantly.

“You know what that phrase means,” Julian said, taking a step toward her.

“I know enough to understand that you are in far greater danger tonight than you were yesterday,” she answered carefully.

“That is not a real explanation.”

“No,” she admitted plainly. “However, I can take you somewhere inside this palace where the rest of the court cannot listen to us.”

Julian glanced through the glass doors toward the bustling reception hall. Aurelia remained positioned among her noble guests, completely unaware that someone had just attempted to assassinate her fiancé only a few steps away. Her posture remained flawless, her facial expression appeared composed, and the aristocrats surrounding her seemed far more interested in securing her royal favor than protecting her life.

For the very first time, Julian began to wonder whether the powerful empress was truly in control of her own palace.

“Take me to the archives,” he said firmly. “I want to find out who my mother really was.”

Mira studied his fierce expression for a quiet moment before giving a slow nod. “Then we must leave this hall immediately, before the empress discovers what you are looking for.”

---

The imperial archives occupied the oldest structural wing of the palace, consisting of a vast network of stone chambers constructed around a narrow courtyard where sunlight never reached the ground. Heavy dust covered the high wooden shelves, and thick iron grilles protected ancient manuscripts considered far too dangerous for ordinary scholars to view. The surrounding air smelled strongly of old parchment, lingering candle smoke, and damp stone.

Mira unlocked three heavy doors in sequence before guiding Julian into a restricted inner chamber.

“If anyone questions our presence here, we are officially investigating the balcony attack,” she explained quietly. “The royal administrative records contain detailed information on every servant assigned to the reception.”

“And what about the records concerning my mother?” Julian asked.

“Those records are officially not supposed to exist.”

Julian looked at her sharply.

Mira unclasped a small key hanging from a silver chain around her neck and opened a narrow wall cabinet hidden discreetly behind a shelf of legal treatises. Inside rested a small collection of sealed folders, each stamped with the imperial crest. She searched through the files until she located one marked with a name that caused Julian's stomach to tighten in dread:

*ELARA VALE — IMPERIAL SCHOLAR*

He reached out to take the file, but Mira caught his wrist to stop him.

“Before you open that document, you need to understand something clearly. Your mother was not some minor employee who simply happened to catch the eye of the royal family. She worked directly alongside the previous empress, and her personal research involved a branch of divine magic that the empire officially denies ever existed.”

“Time magic,” Julian stated plainly.

Mira gave a silent nod.

Julian broke the seal and opened the file.

The very first document inside contained a formal drawn portrait of a woman with long dark hair, thoughtful eyes, and a small scar resting just beneath her chin. Julian stared at the image until his throat tightened into a painful knot. He could no longer recall his mother's face from his own memory, but the mere sight of the woman in the drawing stirred a terrible, aching resonance deep within his chest—as though some hidden part of his mind recognized her and was desperately attempting to return home.

Beneath the formal portrait was a brief written biography.

Elara Vale had been appointed as an official imperial scholar at the age of twenty-three. She had devoted her career to studying the profound relationship between divine power, human memory, and the physical passage of time. Her final research project had been sealed by direct order of the throne, and her official death certificate had been recorded seventeen years earlier.

Julian read the recorded date a second time. “That date cannot possibly be correct.”

Mira leaned over his shoulder to look at the page. “What do you mean?”

“I was born eighteen years ago,” Julian said, looking up at her.

She carefully examined the document, and then she pulled a second sheet of parchment from the folder. It was a handwritten note bearing the official signature of the previous empress.

*Elara insists that the child must remain outside the palace walls until the Thirteenth Hour is fully restored. She firmly believes the boy can survive the transfer, although she refuses to clarify what she means by survival. If the ancient clock awakens before I can complete the grand ritual, Aurelia must never learn what transpired in the chamber.*

Julian felt the temperature in the stone room drop noticeably. “What transfer is she referring to?”

“I have no idea,” Mira answered, her voice strained.

“Then find someone in this palace who does know.”

Mira's expression tightened. “Most of the royal scholars who collaborated with Elara are long dead. The few who survived either vanished without a trace or were executed when the old empress passed away.”

Julian turned his attention back to his mother's portrait, searching for answers.

A tiny detail caught his eye. Hanging around Elara's neck in the portrait was a clock pendant identical to the one Aurelia wore. However, in this drawing, the thirteen hands were arranged in a completely different configuration, with one hand pointing directly away from the clock's center.

He turned the wooden frame over in his hands. A narrow strip of parchment had been tucked discreetly beneath the backing board.

The handwriting on the strip belonged to his mother:

*If Julian has awakened, then the first seal has officially failed. Do not allow Aurelia to enter or open the chamber alone. She will remember the wrong life, and the entire world will pay the price for it.*

Julian read the written sentence aloud into the quiet room.

Mira turned deathly pale.

Before either of them could utter another word, a heavy bell echoed loudly from beyond the archive entrance. Heavy footsteps approached the restricted chamber, accompanied by the metallic clatter of keys turning in locks.

Mira swiftly snatched the note from Julian's hand and slipped it deep inside her coat. “Someone clearly knows we are in here.”

“Who could it be?” Julian whispered.

The heavy lock clicked open.

Mira drew her sharp dagger and positioned her body between Julian and the doorway, but the individual who stepped into the room was not a royal guard.

It was Empress Aurelia.

She wore no golden crown, and her dark hair had come completely undone from its elaborate styling. For the very first time, she looked far less like the cold ruler of an empire and more like a terrified woman who had run desperately through the palace hallways because she feared arriving too late.

Her sharp gaze immediately fell upon the open folder resting on the table, and then her eyes fixed on the portrait.

“Put that document down immediately,” she commanded, her voice trembling slightly.

Julian did not move an inch. “Your mother knew my mother,” he said directly. “She studied forbidden time magic, and she explicitly warned that you must never open the lower chamber alone. What exactly happened in this palace seventeen years ago?”

Aurelia closed the heavy door behind her, leaning back against it. “You have absolutely no idea what you are asking.”

“Then explain it to me right now.”

Her eyes glistened with unshed tears, but her tone remained strictly controlled. “My mother genuinely believed she could alter a single moment in history without destroying everything that came after it. Elara helped her construct the sacred ritual. They both believed they could prevent a tragic death that had already occurred.”

“Whose death were they trying to prevent?” Julian asked.

Aurelia looked directly into his eyes. “Yours.”

The single word seemed to ring out against the stone walls of the archive.

Julian took an involuntary step backward, shaking his head. “That makes no sense. I was born eighteen years ago.”

“You were indeed born,” Aurelia replied softly, “but that does not mean you actually lived your first life.”

Mira's raised dagger lowered slightly in surprise.

Aurelia continued, her voice dropping to a whisper. “On the exact night my mother died, the palace clock struck thirteen times. Elara vanished without a trace, and every single record of what occurred in that chamber was systematically altered. I was told that your mother had betrayed the crown, and I believed that lie for years.”

“Yet you recognized my name the moment you saw me,” Julian pressed.

“I knew the name Julian Vale,” she clarified. “I simply did not know whether the living boy carrying that name was the same person my mother had tried so desperately to save.”

Julian stared intently at her face, searching for any sign of deception. “Why did you keep all of this hidden from me?”

“Because the moment you truly remember what happened that night,” she said, “the clock may finally finish the work it began.”

A sudden, sharp crash echoed from the back of the room.

The wall cabinet had fallen wide open, scattering sealed historical scrolls across the stone floor. One piece of ancient parchment slid directly beneath Aurelia's boot, exposing a royal decree written in her mother's distinct hand.

Mira knelt and picked up the paper. Her face completely drained of color as her eyes scanned the final sentence.

“Your Majesty,” Mira whispered, her voice shaking violently. “This royal order was issued on the exact night the previous empress died.”

Aurelia took the parchment from her hand.

For a long moment, Julian watched the usually stoic empress struggle to keep her hands from trembling. Then, she read aloud the sentence that had remained hidden beneath the wax seal for nearly two decades:

“By direct order of the crown, the child Julian Vale is to be erased from the memories of every living witness.”

Aurelia looked up at Julian, her eyes wide with sudden horror.

“I remember now,” she whispered.

The golden scar on Julian's palm flared with a blinding, searing light. Across the entire archive chamber, every clock hanging on the walls began turning rapidly backward.

And from the deep, dark spaces between the dusty bookshelves, his mother's haunting voice echoed through the room once more:

“Not yet, Aurelia. You have remembered the wrong night.”