THE MARK BENEATH HIS SCARS
Isidora had never seen a prince bleed before.
Not truly.
She had seen portraits of battle-scarred kings in candlelit galleries, heard soldiers praise men who returned from border wars, and watched nobles speak of wounds as though pain became glorious when carried by the powerful.
But Prince Alejandro’s blood did not look glorious.
It darkened the linen at his shoulder and ran in a narrow line down his back as he stood beside the copper basin in the royal bathing chamber.
Outside the wooden door, guards waited in the corridor.
Inside, the chamber held only warm candlelight, wet marble, and the breathless silence of two people who should never have been alone.
“Remove the shirt,” Isidora said.
Alejandro glanced back at her.
“You are very commanding for a servant.”
“I am not a servant.”
“You polish silver in Valeria’s household.”
“I clean wounds better than her physicians.”
That earned the smallest shadow of a smile.
Then pain tightened his face.
He let her pull the stained shirt down from his shoulders.
Old scars crossed his skin.
Pale lines.
A deeper mark near the ribs.
And at the center of his back, just below the left shoulder, a large crescent-shaped birthmark.
Isidora froze.
The wet fabric slipped from her fingers.
Alejandro felt the change in her breathing.
“What?”
She did not answer.
Her own sleeve had loosened as she worked.
The cream fabric slid down her shoulder.
The candlelight touched the hidden mark she had concealed all her life.
A crescent.
The same size.
The same curve.
The same dark point at one end like a drop of midnight.
Alejandro turned fully.
His expression changed.
“We have the same mark,” Isidora whispered.
He moved faster than an injured man should.
One hand closed around her wrist.
The other pulled her sleeve up.
“Hide it.”
His voice had lost all teasing.
“If Valeria sees it, neither of us leaves this room.”
Isidora stared at him.
“Why?”
Alejandro looked toward the door.
Boots shifted outside.
He lowered his voice.
“How long have you known?”
“Since childhood.”
“Who else?”
“No one.”
A lie.
Her dead mother had known.
Or the woman Isidora believed was her mother.
She had called the mark “the moon’s wound” and warned that kings had killed children for less.
Isidora pulled her wrist free.
“Why do we share the same blood?”
Alejandro’s eyes held hers.
“Because you are the princess they failed to erase.”
The chamber door began to open.
Alejandro stepped in front of her.
Lady Valeria entered wearing silver silk and a jeweled girdle, two guards behind her.
She surveyed the chamber.
The prince without his shirt.
The servant girl behind him.
The bloodied linen.
The fear neither had hidden well enough.
“What are you hiding?” Valeria asked.
Isidora stepped back.
Her silver locket caught on the edge of the basin.
The chain snapped.
The locket fell.
It struck the marble and opened.
Inside lay a tiny enamel seal: a white stag beneath a crescent moon.
Valeria looked down.
The color left her face.
“That belonged to the murdered queen.”
Isidora’s breath stopped.
Valeria did not look confused.
She looked terrified.
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And in that instant, Isidora understood the most dangerous truth of all.
Lady Valeria knew exactly who she was.
