THE EMPRESS I FORGOT

Chapter 9: The Empress’s Deadly Secret

The painted empress smiled down at Julian Vale, and in that same instant, every glass clock hanging along the eastern gallery shattered all at once.

Glass burst inward from the walls as though an invisible, giant hand had struck the palace itself. Royal guards shouted in alarm and drew their steel swords, while panicked courtiers stumbled over one another in a frantic rush to escape the spreading darkness that seeped from the portrait's gilded frame. Julian barely had time to seize Aurelia’s wrist before the marble floor beneath their boots began to tremble violently.

“Your Majesty, get away from that painting!” Mira Thorne shouted over the commotion, her sword drawn and ready.

Aurelia did not move a single step. Her dark eyes remained fixated upon the painted woman, whose facial expression had transformed from a regal smile into something unbearably familiar. The altered artwork now depicted Aurelia wearing a crown of black iron, her right hand stained with fresh blood. Standing directly behind her was a young man in polished imperial armor, his face unmistakably Julian’s.

Only the man depicted in the painting was already dead.

A narrow black blade protruded straight through his chest, and the painted version of Aurelia held its hilt with the exact same hand Julian had watched her use to sign their official engagement contract.

“No,” Aurelia whispered, her voice trembling. “That is not how it happened.”

The portrait’s painted eyes slowly shifted toward her. “Then tell them how it truly happened.”

The haunting voice echoed directly from inside the canvas, yet the tone sounded exactly like Aurelia’s own voice.

Julian tightened his grip around her wrist, pulling her back slightly. “Aurelia, look at me right now. Whatever you think you remember in this moment, do not let that thing decide what is true.”

She turned her head toward him, her expression so raw and vulnerable that, for a single moment, he completely forgot she was the most feared ruler in the entire empire.

“What if that thing is the only entity telling me the absolute truth?” she asked quietly.

Before Julian could offer an answer, the painted figure in the artwork raised its bloodstained blade. Aurelia screamed as the historical portrait split down the middle, releasing a blinding wave of golden light that swept violently across the gallery floor.

Julian felt the familiar, crushing pressure build behind his eyes—the unmistakable warning that time itself was about to break once again. He knew he could stop the moment. He knew he possessed the power to freeze the world in place. However, the last time he had altered an irreversible event, he had lost a precious memory of Aurelia that he could no longer recover.

Furthermore, somewhere deep inside his mind, a warning written in his own handwriting lingered like a concealed knife: When Aurelia opens the thirteenth door, do not save her.

Julian deliberately released her wrist.

Instead of freezing time, Julian threw his body directly between Aurelia and the magical blast, dragging her behind a thick stone pillar just as the golden light tore through the gallery. The heavy impact knocked the breath entirely out of his lungs, but the surrounding world continued moving naturally. For the very first time since his power had awakened, he had chosen to endure a tragic moment rather than command it.

When the blinding light finally faded, the canvas of the portrait was empty. Only the black blade remained painted onto the background, and directly beneath it, fresh letters materialized across the frame:

THE FIRST TIME, SHE KILLED HIM TO SAVE THE WORLD.

Aurelia stared at the written words, every drop of color completely drained from her face.

Julian slowly turned toward her, gasping for air. “You said earlier that you remembered who you killed.”

“I remember a man kneeling before me,” she replied, her voice trembling despite her desperate efforts to maintain control. “I remember a cold blade in my hand. I remember someone softly begging me to stop.”

“Was it me?” Julian asked directly.

Her heavy silence gave him his answer.

Then, she reached out, seized his coat sleeve, and whispered, “But I also distinctly remember you asking me to do it.”

The spoken words struck him harder than the physical blast of magic. Julian searched her eyes for any sign of deception, but Aurelia looked every bit as horrified by her own confession as he felt hearing it.

Somewhere further down the gallery, a wounded guard groaned in pain, and Mira began shouting commands to the surviving soldiers to evacuate the terrified courtiers from the wing. Yet, Julian could barely hear their voices over the single question pounding relentlessly inside his mind.

“Why would I ever ask you to kill me?”

Aurelia shook her head helplessly. “I do not know. I can clearly hear your voice in the memory, but I cannot see your face. Every time I try to look at you, something tears the memory away from my mind.”

“Perhaps someone wants you to remember a very specific version of what happened,” a voice called out.

Master Oren appeared at the far end of the gallery, leaning heavily upon his carved wooden walking stick. His sharp gaze settled upon the empty canvas, and the remaining color vanished from his weathered face.

“Everyone out of this gallery immediately,” he ordered the guards.

One of the soldiers hesitated. “Master Oren, the empress is still inside—”

“Unless you wish to explain to the royal council why you allowed an ancient divine seal to consume half the palace, I suggest you obey my order right now,” Oren warned sharply.

The guard bowed quickly and ushered the remaining men out of the hall.

When the gallery was finally empty, Oren approached the ruined portrait and pressed two fingers firmly against its wooden frame. The solid wood shuddered beneath his touch.

“The painting has officially become a witness,” he murmured. “That means the ancient seal buried beneath the palace is weakening far faster than we originally feared.”

Julian took a step closer to the old man. “What seal are you talking about?”

Oren looked at Aurelia before answering. “The seal that prevents the Thirteenth Hour from returning to this world.”

Aurelia straightened her posture, gathering the cold, majestic authority she wore like armor. “You explicitly told me that the Thirteenth Hour was nothing more than a myth invented by my mother's political enemies.”

“I told you what the imperial crown needed you to believe at the time,” Oren stated plainly.

Her eyes narrowed in anger. “You have been lying to my face.”

“I have been keeping the secret for seventeen years,” Oren admitted quietly. “Because your mother made me swear a sacred oath that you would never remember what transpired in the chamber beneath the throne.”

Julian felt the golden mark etched beneath his sleeve grow uncomfortably warm. “What happened down in that chamber?”

Oren opened his mouth to reply, but the wooden frame of the portrait cracked again with a loud snap. A folded sheet of parchment slipped from the narrow gap behind the canvas and landed directly at Aurelia's feet. Her name was written across the front of the paper in her mother's unmistakable, elegant handwriting.

She picked it up with trembling fingers.

“Leave us,” she instructed Mira, who had returned to stand near the gallery doorway.

Mira glanced nervously at Julian. “If this document concerns the safety of the crown, Your Majesty, you should not read it without proper protection.”

“Protection from whom?” Aurelia asked.

Mira shifted her gaze back to Julian. “From anyone who requires you to believe whatever is written inside that letter.”

For a brief second, Aurelia appeared ready to dismiss her guard's caution. Instead, she handed the parchment to Mira and drew a slim dagger from her sleeve. “Search it for dark enchantments.”

Mira carefully examined the paper, murmuring a brief incantation under her breath, and watched a faint blue light pass across its surface. Nothing unusual occurred.

“It appears to be completely harmless,” Mira reported, though her skeptical expression suggested she trusted the result very little.

Aurelia took the letter back and unfolded the parchment. The written message contained only a few short paragraphs:

My dear daughter,

If you are reading these words, then the first seal has officially failed, and the boy I ordered the entire world to forget has returned.

Do not trust the memories that surface when the clock strikes thirteen. They do not always belong to you.

Elara firmly believed she could save him without destroying your future. I believed I could save you without destroying his. We were both tragically wrong.

The lower chamber will open when you finally remember the life you took from him.

And when that door finally opens, you must decide whether you truly love the man standing before you, or the world that will perish if you choose him.

Beneath the final sentence was a detailed map outlining the palace's deepest stone foundations. A thin red line led directly from the throne room down to a sealed chamber marked with thirteen small circular symbols.

Julian leaned over Aurelia's shoulder to examine the drawing. “Your mother knew I would eventually return.”

“She knew that something would eventually return,” Oren corrected him, his voice heavy. “She may not have known whether it would be the same boy.”

Julian turned his head sharply toward the old master. “Explain what you mean by that.”

Oren hesitated for a moment, and that brief hesitation spoke more to Julian than any direct answer could have.

“Your power does not merely rewind moments in time,” the old man explained softly. “It leaves alternate possibilities behind. Whenever a life is altered, the abandoned version of events does not simply disappear from existence. Sometimes it survives as a lingering memory. Sometimes, it survives as a living person.”

A cold, creeping sensation crawled down Julian's spine.

“The golden-eyed man I saw in my vision,” Julian whispered, realization dawning on him. “The one who claimed he was the part of me that remembers.”

Oren nodded gravely. “If that entity is truly what I fear it is, then it has been waiting for the arrival of the Thirteenth Hour far longer than you have.”

Before Julian could ask another question, the parchment in Aurelia's hands suddenly moved on its own. The dark ink began crawling across the page like living fluid, rapidly reshaping the map before their eyes. The red line that had previously led toward the throne room twisted away, winding through the stone foundations beneath the royal apartments, and coming to a final stop at a small chamber situated directly beneath Aurelia's private bedroom.

A fresh sentence materialized across the paper in bold black ink:

THE DOOR OPENS WHEN THE SOVEREIGN REMEMBERS WHOM SHE SACRIFICED.

Aurelia stumbled backward in shock. “No,” she whispered, her eyes wide. “My mother explicitly wrote that the chamber was located beneath the throne room.”

“It was located there originally,” Oren explained quietly. “Until the palace structure began shifting around the wound in time.”

Julian looked down at the revised map, and then he looked back at Aurelia. “What happens to us when we open that door?”

“Someone will remember everything,” Oren answered. “And someone else will lose the very last memory that keeps this world intact.”

The golden scar on Julian's palm flared with agonizing heat once again. A vivid vision flashed rapidly through his mind: he saw a dark, subterranean chamber, Aurelia kneeling beside his bleeding body, and a golden crown lying broken in the ash between them.

Then, he heard a distinct voice echoing inside his head that belonged to neither Oren nor Aurelia:

You promised you would let her forget.

Julian staggered sideways, catching his balance against the stone wall.

Aurelia rushed to his side immediately, her eyes full of concern. “Julian? What is happening to you?”

He looked at her face, and for one terrifying, unthinkable second, he could not remember her name.

The hollow emptiness passed almost immediately, leaving him trembling from head to toe. He remembered her face, the sound of her voice, and the comforting warmth of her hand resting against his arm. Yet, that brief, total absence of memory frightened him far more than any physical monster ever could. His strange power was no longer extracting memories only when he actively used it; something else was reaching directly into his mind and pulling them away.

Mira suddenly drew her steel sword and faced the main entrance of the gallery. “We have company coming.”

The rhythmic sound of heavy footsteps echoed from beyond the gallery doors—heavy iron boots, and many of them.

Lord Cassian entered the room accompanied by a dozen fully armed imperial guards, his facial expression entirely composed and his hands neatly folded behind his back. His calculating gaze shifted from the ruined portrait to the parchment clutched in Aurelia's hand.

“So,” Cassian said softly, a dark smile touching his lips. “The former queen's little secret has finally surfaced.”

Aurelia swiftly concealed the map behind her back. “You have absolutely no authority to enter this private gallery without my explicit permission, Uncle.”

“Under ordinary circumstances, that might be true,” Cassian replied smoothly, gesturing toward the guards behind him. “However, the palace wards have just detected a severe, illegal breach of divine magic. By imperial law, the suspected source of that magic must be immediately detained for questioning.”

His cold eyes locked directly onto Julian. “I am afraid your fiancé will have to come with us.”

Aurelia stepped firmly between the guards and Julian, her hand on her dagger. “Lay a single hand on him, and I will have your hands removed.”

Cassian smiled without a trace of warmth. “Then I strongly suggest you read your mother's letter again, Your Majesty. Because if the Thirteenth Hour truly returns to this empire, the very first person it will demand is not your commoner fiancé.”

He stepped closer, lowering his voice so only the three of them could hear his words: “It will demand the empress who killed him.”

Behind Cassian, every single imperial guard drew their steel sword in unison.

Deep beneath the palace foundations, the ancient clock began to strike its heavy bell.

One.

Two.

Three.

Aurelia's fingers closed tightly around Julian's hand. By the seventh chime of the bell, silent tears were streaming down her face. By the twelfth chime, she was softly whispering a name Julian had never heard in his entire life—his true name, spoken with the profound grief of someone who had mourned his loss for an entire lifetime.

Then, the thirteenth chime echoed through the stone walls, and every single door throughout the entire palace swung wide open all at once.

A chilling voice rose from the darkness directly beneath Aurelia's bedroom, speaking in Julian's exact voice:

“Welcome back, my empress. This time, you must finish what you started.”