Elara moved swiftly down the castle's corridors, stopping a maid every once in a while to make sure she was going in the right direction. Crisseda was busy during the day—at least, according to the other maid who'd told her so when she asked for Crisseda—so she had to find her way to the Grand Duke's office on her own. A maid had offered to take her, but they seemed busy enough with their own things and she hated the idea of bothering them. Besides, if someone kept leading the way, she might never learn her way around. Elara was the visual learning type.
She was deeply disturbed by the discrepancies. Maybe it was nothing and maybe she was overthinking things, but it bothered her. It was like a splinter in her finger, throbbing away. The knowledge she'd once held with such certainty now felt dangerously flimsy. When she was in front of the female lead, she couldn't afford to feel that way. She couldn't afford to be vulnerable and exposed because she knew the female lead's personality just as well as Caspian did. Hell, maybe she understood it better than Caspian. The moment Lyanna Orinthal saw holes in the boat, she pushed it into the deep end of the ocean with her opponent inside.
As she rounded the corner to Caspian's office, she nearly collided with a tall, imposing figure. The figure wrapped a hand around her wrist to catch her as she stumbled back and she looked up in surprise.
Chancellor Kyran.
"Miss. Elara," he greeted her, bowing low and respectfully. Despite the politeness of his tone, his eyes were assessing her. Her every move, her every action, was being tested.
"Chancellor Kyran," she replied with as much composure as she could muster. It wasn't as if she feared for her life in Chancellor Kyran's presence--he, like all the knights in Caspian's charge, shared their liege's chivalry--but she didn't want to displease him regardless. He was the closest one to Caspian, the one who had been with him since he was a wide-eyed fifteen-year-old boy sent to the frontlines to die. She wanted them to get along, to discuss things together for Caspian's sake.
"I assume you have come here for his Grace?"
"Ah, yes."
"He's occupied at the moment. There is much he must catch up with."
"I'm not planning to be long. I only want to discuss...something important." She tried to project confidence into her voice.
He studied her for a beat before giving her a curt nod and disappearing into Caspian's office. The moment he was gone, Elara's entire body relaxed, and the breath she'd been holding left her.
Kyran returned after a quick moment, holding the door open to her. "His Grace will see you now."
Elara murmured her thanks and slipped past him and into the office. Her nerves eased when she saw Caspian's face. Behind his desk--which was covered in a mountain of papers--sat Caspian. He was wearing a pair of glasses that only served to further highlight his good looks.
That's dangerous, she thought to herself, coming to a stop in front of his desk. The white hair, the face, the glasses, the body. If I died tomorrow, I'd die happy.
Caspian looked up at her, and she could swear she saw his gaze sweep over her dress.
"Elara, to what do I owe this pleasure?"
"I came to talk to you about--" She glanced behind her at the door; after confirming it was closed, she looked back at Caspian, leaning in. "There's something strange going on."
She thought she saw his gaze flicker toward her neckline, but he returned his gaze to her face so quickly that she was sure she'd imagined it. Especially because the books had described Caspian as a virtually unmovable character. In some of the forums, people had begun to assume Caspian and Chancellor Kyran had a secret relationship that the author had left out even after the author had denied it.
Caspian stood and gestured to the set of loveseats in the middle of the room. After they had both taken seats across from each other, Caspian asked, "What's troubling you?"
"I'm not sure that--" she took a breath, trying to calm herself. "Look, I could be crazy and overthinking things, but I'm pretty sure this might be something that can bite us in the ass later, so I think it'll be worth it to talk about. I think there are some things from this world that weren't included in the novel."
Caspian's brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"
Elara looked at her hands, gathering her thoughts for a moment before she looked back up to meet his eyes. "The novel is told from Lyanna's perspective, so everything you learn about the world, you learn through how Lyanna sees everything. Yet, when I got here, there were a bunch of things that existed here that were never mentioned in the novel. And then just now when I was talking to Madame Faylan, I learned that she was a Clothweaver which is something that's never mentioned in the novel or anywhere in the author's forum."
She leaned forward. "But it doesn't make sense to me. In the novel, Lyanna never talks about magic in the novel at all despite the fact she comes from a line of Mages and is a powerful Mage herself. Either this world, even though it's the basis for the book, exists as something entirely different—its own universe—or the author left out important parts of it on purpose. Or…" She took a breath, the realization settling over her like a weight. "Or Lyanna is meant to be an unreliable narrator."
Caspian, who had been listening closely all this time, asked, "An unreliable narrator?"
"Yes. It's a pretty popular trope in my world. Basically, you take a main character who you've been made to believe is the hero and you assume their narrative is absolute truth only to find out, it wasn't what you thought. Every person you suspected, every person you liked or hated, was framed through the narrator's own warped perspectives."
"An unreliable narrator," Caspian repeated, understanding sparking in his gaze.
Elara nodded. "If that's true, everything I thought I knew about this world and how the story goes is at risk. We can't rely solely on the book, just in case."
Caspian was quiet for a long while, his gaze distant. The silver depths of his eyes hardened into something dark, a deep fury that made butterflies unfurl in her stomach.
This is terrifying but he looks so good when he's pissed.
His gaze snapped back to her and she straightened up, heart thundering. For a wild second, she thought he'd heard the inner workings of her mind.
How embarrassing would that be?
"I know I told you not to tell me too much of the original book because it might be dangerous, but if we're going to create a proper contingency plan, I'll need you to tell me everything that will happen at Valtren's Bounty Hunt. I'd like to bring Chancellor Kyran into this, too, if that's fine with you. I trust his opinion and can vouch for his discretion."
Elara nodded. "I know how important he is to you. I trust him, too."
Caspian called for Chancellor Kyran, and the man immediately came in, bowing. "You called for me, your Grace."
Caspian waved him over and the chancellor entered, glancing between the two of them. When he was close, Caspian gestured over to the seat at his side.
"Please, sit."
When the chancellor was settled, Caspian said, "Miss. Elara has brought something...troubling to my attention." He turned to her. "Tell him what you told me. You don't have to leave anything out, he knows where you came from and how you're here."
Elara cleared her throat, feeling a little pressured under the chancellor's intense gaze. "So, you know this world is inside of a book?" When he nodded, she went on, "In that book, Lyanna is the main character. It follows her perspective, so I assumed we were learning everything about the world through her, but ever since I've been here, I keep coming into contact with things that weren't in the novels. For instance, Lyanna Orinthal is a powerful Mage, but she never mentions magic in the book. Clothweavers, Wardens, Seers, Glamoursmiths, none of those were touched on in the novel. There are only three reasons I can think of that explain why things are different here than they are in the book: this world is its own universe that exists outside the book, the author purposefully or unintentionally left things out, or Lyanna was an unreliable narrator." She ticked each one off on her fingers. "If that's the case, there's the possibility that things might diverge from the original plotline. I expected that to some degree when I agreed to help Caspian change his end, but..."
"Have you discussed the plot of the novel already?"
They both shook their heads, but it was Caspian who answered, "There's no telling what the ramifications may be. Ever since I learned this world was one in a book, I've told no one except for you, Kyran, because what will happen if we all know? Will the world implode in on itself? Will we all disappear? There's no telling what terrible thing can happen, so I've asked Miss. Elara to keep her knowledge to herself. However, it's clear that we need to know some things in order to make plans for what to do just in case things go wrong."
Chancellor Kyran was nodding. "Understood." He turned his attention back to Elara, expectant.
"The first event that takes place in the novel is the Valtren Bounty Hunt. In it, Lyanna decides Caspian has too much power over the hearts of commoners and nobles alike, and she wants to bring him down a peg before he can pose a threat to the royal family. She devises a scheme to use Marchioness Latus's power over the nobles to spread rumors that Caspian desires the throne and is a bloodthirsty war tyrant who will bring unrest to the peaceful nature of Isyndor."
Chancellor Kyran looked miffed, but he said, "That's easy enough to deal with. As the Grand Duke's lover, you will be with the noble ladies at the time the rumors come to spread so you'll be able to correct their lies."
Elara waved a hand. "I was planning to do that anyway. That's not the main thing that's the issue. On the seventh day of the Hunt, someone makes an attempt at Caspian's life."
Caspian's eyes shot up to his hairline. "And who would be so bold?"
"You know who," she replied. "She wasn't doing it so you'd die, she was doing it to prove the rumors she'd spread about you as truth. Caspian, the bloodthirsty tyrant, murders an innocent employee in cold blood. Even when you insist your life was in danger, your reputation is so badly damaged after days of rumors and plots to make you look your worst that no one believes you."
Chancellor Kyran looks thoughtful suddenly. "So Queen Lyanna will finally make her move."
"You knew?" she asked.
The chancellor nodded and when he spoke, he did so cautiously, still not trusting her enough to say everything. "I guessed at it a few years ago. She keeps contacts here who keep tabs on his Grace's every move. I thought that much was normal. It's common for the imperial family to keep tabs on the king's siblings. Especially when they garnered as much respect and honor as his Grace gained after his return from the battlefield. But the contacts she placed here were all highly trained operatives from the capital. Not spies disguising themselves as common people, but members of the Imperial Guard." He looked directly at her. "You've read the books on this world so you tell me, why would the queen send members of the Imperial Guard to the capital instead of spies?"
She thought of the novel's end and a chill tingled from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes.