Chapter 35: The Name Beside Ripley

They spread the old document across Ronan’s desk, studying it under the lamplight until their eyes ached. The agreement between the Ripley family and another ancient bloodline had clearly been drafted with care, formal language binding two houses together in terms Naya didn’t fully understand. The second family’s name had been damaged beyond reading, water stains and age eating away at the ink until only a faint symbol remained beside it.

Naya leaned closer, brushing a finger near the damaged section without touching the fragile paper. "Do you recognize that symbol?"

Ronan traced it with one finger. His brow furrowed as he studied the faded lines. "I’ve seen it before."

"Where?"

"I don’t remember."

Naya looked at him. "You don’t remember, or you don’t want to tell me?"

He glanced at her. "I genuinely don’t know what it means."

She studied his face for another moment before looking back at the document. "Then I suppose we’re both equally clueless."

"Not entirely." Ronan pointed toward the date. "Look at this."

What mattered most was the date. The agreement predated Ronan’s family taking the throne entirely, which meant this wasn’t ordinary pack politics dressed up as history.

Naya stared at the faded numbers. "This was before your family became royal."

"Yes."

"My family had an agreement with someone powerful enough to be recorded before the monarchy even existed?"

"Apparently."

She looked at him. "Why would my family have an agreement this old?"

Ronan leaned back slightly, his eyes remaining on the document. "I don’t know."

Naya waited.

After a moment, he added, "But that’s what we’re going to find out."

Further down the page, they found a reference to a child born from the joining of the two bloodlines, and the recorded date fell close enough to Naya’s own birth that neither of them could dismiss it as coincidence.

Naya read the line twice before shaking her head. "That can’t be me."

Ronan didn’t tell her it wasn’t. He simply looked at the date again. "We don’t know that yet."

She turned toward him. "You really think it could be?"

"I think the dates are too close to ignore."

"But that doesn’t make sense."

"Then we’ll find out what does."

She appreciated, even through her unease, that he wasn’t rushing to fill the gap with certainty he didn’t have.

That evening, Naya reached out to Marissa, using one of the palace’s secure channels to request a private call. Her stepmother’s face appeared on the screen looking guarded before Naya had said a single word.

Naya didn’t bother with pleasantries.

"Who were you expecting me to become?"

Marissa’s expression sharpened instantly. "What is this about?"

"An old agreement." Naya held the document up toward the screen. "Between our family and another bloodline. There’s a child mentioned. Born around the same time I was."

Marissa’s eyes flickered toward the document.

That tiny movement told Naya more than her words had.

"You know what this is."

"I don’t know what you’re talking about."

"Marissa."

"I said I don’t know."

"Then why did you look at the document like that?"

Silence stretched long enough that Naya thought the connection had dropped.

Finally, Marissa looked away.

"Your father did what he had to do."

Naya’s stomach tightened. "Did he?"

"You don’t understand."

"Then explain it to me."

Marissa’s voice tightened. "You don’t understand what would happen if the King knew who you really were."

Naya went completely still.

"What does that mean?"

Marissa’s eyes widened slightly, as though she’d said more than she intended.

"Marissa, what does that mean?"

The call ended.

Naya stared at the blank screen for several seconds, barely breathing.

She sat there for a long moment, the confirmation settling over her far heavier than any denial would have. Whatever her family had hidden, it was real, and it had shaped every decision they’d made about her since before she could remember.

She went straight to Ronan and told him everything Marissa had said, holding nothing back this time.

Ronan listened without interrupting. By the time she finished, his expression had darkened, though not at her.

"Your family has been manipulating both of us."

"I know."

He looked toward the document on his desk. "They knew something about you."

"Apparently."

"And they kept it from you."

Naya nodded.

Ronan’s gaze returned to her. "Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?"

Naya hesitated.

Then she met his eyes.

"Because I was afraid you’d look at me the way you looked at Elara."

His expression changed.

Naya continued before she could lose her nerve. "You decided what she was before you heard her side. You judged her, and you never gave her the chance to explain herself. When everything started happening with me, I kept thinking..." She swallowed. "If you found out there was something strange about my family, you’d do the same thing to me."

Ronan said nothing.

"I was afraid that if I told you everything I knew, you’d stop seeing me as Naya and start seeing me as whatever my family had been hiding."

That landed somewhere she watched shift across his face, understanding settling in slowly.

Her silence hadn’t been betrayal.

It had been fear, built from every cruel word he’d thrown at her in those first weeks.

Ronan finally stepped closer.

"I am not Elara’s judge anymore."

Naya looked up at him.

"And if you discover something you don’t like?"

His answer came quietly.

"Then I’ll ask you."

She searched his face.

"I won’t decide who you are before you’ve had the chance to answer."

The words carried weight given everything he’d once done, condemning her before she’d said a single word in her own defense. This was him correcting that mistake deliberately, and she felt it land somewhere deep.

They stood there in the quiet study, the weight of everything they’d just uncovered settling around them.

Then Naya asked the question that had followed her since the wedding.

"Do you still hate me?"

Ronan didn’t answer right away.

His eyes stayed on hers, and for a moment she wondered if she’d made a mistake asking.

When he finally spoke, there was no hesitation.

"No."

Naya’s breath caught slightly.

"You’re sure?"

"Yes."

She looked down, trying to hide how much that single word affected her.

It wasn’t a declaration of love. It wasn’t even close to one.

But the simple honesty of it affected her more than any grand confession could have, and she felt something in her chest loosen that had been wound tight for months.

Ronan reached for her hand.

Naya looked at his fingers before slowly placing hers in his.

He closed his hand around hers, warm and steady.

Neither of them said anything further about what that meant.

It didn’t need explaining.

It simply was—the first deliberate touch between them that had nothing to do with punishment or possession or performance for anyone else’s benefit.

A knock interrupted them before the moment could stretch any further, and Darius entered a moment later. His eyes dropped briefly to their joined hands before he politely looked away.

"There’s a second record."

Ronan’s attention shifted immediately. "Where?"

"In the royal vault."

Naya released a breath. "You mean there’s another copy of this?"

Darius nodded. "The damaged document isn’t the only record."

Ronan straightened. "Can we access it?"

"It requires the King’s blood seal."

Ronan looked at Naya.

She already knew what he was thinking.

"Then we’re going now?"

"Yes."

He released her hand, though something in his expression told her the moment wasn’t over, only postponed.

They made their way down through the palace’s oldest corridors, the air growing colder the further they descended, until they reached a heavy stone door sealed with markings older than anything Naya had seen elsewhere in the palace.

Naya stared at the markings. "How old is this place?"

"Older than the palace above us."

"That doesn’t make me feel better."

"It wasn’t meant to."

She glanced at him. "You really know how to make a woman feel safe."

A faint smile touched his mouth before disappearing as he turned toward the door.

Ronan pressed his palm against the center.

For several seconds, nothing happened.

Then the ancient mechanism responded to something in his blood.

The lock groaned open with a sound that seemed to shake dust loose from the walls.

Inside, shelves lined with genealogical records stretched back into darkness. Ronan located the correct volume with practiced familiarity and laid it open across a stone table.

Naya leaned over his shoulder as he turned the pages.

Her own family name appeared exactly where she expected it, tied once again to the same damaged symbol from the earlier document.

"It’s the same symbol," she whispered.

Ronan nodded. "Yes."

He turned another page.

Beneath it, in careful, faded script, sat a third entry she hadn’t anticipated.

Naya leaned closer.

Her own name.

Her heart stumbled.

Except it wasn’t her name at all.

Not Naya Ripley.

Not anything close to it.

A name entirely foreign to her, one she’d never heard spoken in her life.

She stared at it.

"Ronan..."

He didn’t answer.

He was staring at the same line.

Beneath the unfamiliar name, written in the same careful hand, sat a single sentence.

Naya read it once.

Then again.

Her breath caught in her throat.

"The last surviving heir."