A Throne for the Forgotten

Chapter 3

Talia was still staring at the marriage contract, her mind trying to make sense of the emptiness. No initials. No signatures. Just a formal piece of paper dressed up in lies.

Everything she thought she had—gone in a single blank line.

Then, without warning, Clarisse burst into the east wing like it personally offended her with the fact that Talia still breathed.

She didn’t knock. Her heels struck the marble like hammers, each step sharper than the last.

She moved through the threshold like she expected Talia to vanish on sight, as if her presence alone should’ve been enough to wipe her out of the Wynne estate entirely.

“Ugh,” Clarisse scoffed, hands on her hips. “You’re still here?”

Talia, calm as the storm outside, didn’t flinch. She folded a blouse in half and smoothed it with her palm. The suitcase on the bed yawned open, half-packed, half-waiting.

“I’ll leave when I’m ready,” she replied, steady, eyes still on the fabric. Her voice held no hesitation.

Clarisse scoffed, stepping further in with the entitled energy of someone whose power was slipping.

“Trying to milk sympathy?” she said, pacing the edge of the bed like a predator who wasn’t sure of its prey anymore. “You’ve lost. Lucan chose a better one. Everyone knows it.”

Talia zipped one compartment with a single, precise motion and turned slowly.

“Then you shouldn’t be so scared.” It wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be. The sentence dropped like a weight between them.

Clarisse opened her mouth and closed it. “Scared of you?” she said with a weak laugh. “You’re delusional.”

She lingered one second too long before leaving. Her heels didn’t sound quite as sharp on the way out. The door closed behind her without force.

Talia stared at the door for a moment, then turned back to the suitcase. She placed another folded dress inside and pulled the zipper halfway.

Her breath was slow. Controlled. No shaking. No urgency. She wasn’t performing for anyone now.

Downstairs, Lucan walked like a man haunted.

He didn’t speak to her. Not about the gala. Not about the headlines. Not about Virelle. And especially not about the folder he’d found hidden in her drawer — the one labeled ‘Evidence’.

But his silence wasn’t strength. It was unraveling.

He left the rooms she entered. Turned corners she walked toward. Pretended not to see her — but she knew better. She felt him watching.

When she laughed with the staff in the kitchen, he hovered out of sight. When she gave the driver instructions, he lingered behind the staircase, pretending not to care.

But that was the thing about Lucan. He only unraveled when he no longer had the power and not because she cried.

But because she didn’t.

No screaming. No begging. No scenes. Just a smile to the butler, a polite nod to the gardener, a calm request for breakfast even when no one offered. She walked like the estate was hers. And suddenly—it was.

He didn’t know how to reach her anymore. Not through apology. Not presence. Not guilt. The woman he watched now wasn’t waiting to be chosen. She had already chosen herself.

Upstairs, she lit a single candle instead of the lamp. The glow danced across the vanity as she slid open the drawer. Her fingers brushed past gold clips, silver pins… then stopped.

She pressed gently on the groove beneath the tray. Click.

The hidden box sat where she’d left it. Wrapped in gray linen. Tied with silk. She pulled it out and let the ribbon fall.

Inside: her original birth certificate. And it didn’t say Wynne.

She stared at it for a moment, then whispered, more to herself than anyone else: “You could’ve just told me the truth.”

Her voice was steady. Barely audible.

“You could’ve told me I wasn’t enough. That you outgrew me. That Virelle was easier to parade around.”

She touched the edge of the paper, her thumb dragging softly along the embossed crest.

“But you stood beside me for a year and a half. Ate from my hand. Slept in my bed. And you let me think we were real.”

She laughed once—sharp and joyless. “And the worst part, Lucan? I didn’t even break. You did.”

Her tone was quiet, even kind.

“I want to scream. I want to throw something. But…” She looked down at the document. At the blank lines. At the contract. The folder. The plan. “Now I just want you to remember this silence every time you hear her laugh.”

Outside, the hallway was quiet. Lucan hadn’t left. He was standing just beyond the door, like he could hear the echo of her thoughts without a single word.

And that was the difference between them now. She had learned how to walk away without needing to be heard.

He was only just learning what it meant to be ignored.