I Woke Up Married to the Cursed King

Riven came back in less than a day.

He put the file on the table and sat down.

"The queen," he said. "Born in the western provinces. Minor noble family. Met the previous king at a border summit when she was nineteen. He apparently fell completely in love with her on the spot and spent six months sending her increasingly dramatic courting gifts until she said yes."

Elian looked at the file.

"The marriage," Riven continued, "was by all accounts the most genuinely happy union this kingdom had seen in generations. People talk about it still. She was kind. She was loved by the staff, the court, the common people. She had Caelian first, then Rowan. She died giving birth to Rowan."

Silence.

"That’s not what’s written everywhere else," Elian said slowly. "Every record I’ve seen — the ones Edmund gave me, the ones in the household register — says she died having Caelian. Not Rowan."

"I know," Riven said. "I read those too, before I went looking for better ones." He tapped the file. "The original physician’s log says Rowan. Every copy made after that — the ones that actually circulated, the ones the household repeats — says Caelian. Someone swapped it. Deliberately, and a long time ago."

"Why would anyone bother lying about which child it was," Elian said.

"I don’t know yet," Riven said. "But it’s the only part of her story anyone went to the trouble of changing. Which means it’s the only part that mattered to someone."

"Just died, though?" Elian said. "Whichever child it was. No one helped that along?"

"Complications during Rowan’s birth," Riven said. "Complications. It was quick. She didn’t suffer long." He paused. "There’s nothing suspicious about the death itself. I checked everything. The attending physicians. The timeline. The records from three different sources." He looked at Elian. "She was exactly who everyone says she was. A good woman who died too young. The only lie in the whole file is which birth killed her — and I don’t yet know who needed that lie, or why."

Elian sat back.

Not the key, he thought.

He thought about Caelian. About growing up with a mother for some years and then losing her. About Rowan never knowing her at all.

"So she’s not the missing piece," Elian said.

"No," Riven said. "But."

Elian looked at him.

"I found something else." Riven pulled a different page from the file. "Small thing. Might be nothing."

"Tell me."

"The queen wasn’t from here. Western provinces — different traditions, different beliefs. She brought her faith with her when she married." He set the page down. "There was a shrine. Small one, somewhere on the palace grounds. Built for her specifically, so she could practice. After she died, nobody used it. It was probably forgotten."

"A shrine to what," Sable said.

"A guardian deity. Her tradition’s equivalent of a protective spirit tied to a specific land." Riven looked at Elian. "If that deity is still here — if it hasn’t moved on — it would have been present in this palace for decades. It would have seen everything."

Elian stared at him.

"You want me to find a god," he said.

"A minor deity. Guardian class."

"Riven." Elian put his hands flat on the table. "Do you know how rare it is to see a divine being? They don’t just— they’re not spirits. They don’t stay in one place because they’re attached to something. They move. They leave. Especially if the person they were connected to is dead."

"I know," Riven said. "But some stay. You know some stay."

Elian thought about the divine being at the shrine. The one he’d invited home. The one that had been forgotten and weakened and was slowly recovering because the maids kept leaving fruit.

"Some stay," he admitted.

"So it’s worth looking."

"It might not be there," Elian said. "The queen has been dead for over twenty years. The shrine was probably abandoned immediately after. Whatever deity was connected to it likely moved on decades ago."

"Probably," Riven said. "Maybe."

"We’re cutting maybes," Sable said.

Elian looked at her.

She hit him on the back of the head.

Not hard. But firmly.

"Ow," Elian said.

"That man," she said, pointing at Riven, "went and found you information. Good information. And you’re sitting there doing the maybe voice." She pulled her chair closer. "We don’t do maybe. We go look. We try. If it’s not there, it’s not there and we move on. But we are not going to sit here and assume it’s not there before we even look."

Elian rubbed the back of his head.

"You hit me," he said.

"I’ll do it again," she said. "Are we going to look for the shrine or not?"

He looked at Riven.

Riven looked back with the expression of a man who was very glad he wasn’t the one who got hit.

"We look for the shrine," Elian said.

"Good," Sable said. "There are things in this palace we don’t even know the shape of yet. A deity that’s been here for twenty years watching everything that’s happened—" She paused. "That’s not a maybe. That’s a lead."

"It might not be there," Elian said again. Quieter this time.

"It might be," she said. "And right now might is better than nothing."

She was right.

He hated that she was right.

"Where do we start looking," he said.

"Old grounds," Riven said. "The parts of the palace gardens that haven’t been touched. Somewhere the queen would have wanted privacy. Somewhere that feels—" He searched for the word.

"Different," Elian said.

"Yes."

Elian thought about the palace grounds. About the months he’d spent walking them. About the places where the spiritual energy pooled and the places where it felt clean and the places where—

He stopped.

"I know where to start," he said.

He stood up.

"Where?" Sable said.

"There’s a section of the east garden," Elian said. "Behind the old wall. I’ve walked past it a dozen times. The energy there is—" He paused. "It’s not like the rest of the grounds. It’s quieter. More deliberate." He looked at them. "I always assumed it was just old. But maybe it’s not old."

"Maybe it’s protected," Riven said.

"Maybe," Elian said.

Sable gave him a look.

"Let’s go look," he said.

They went that afternoon.

The east garden behind the old wall was exactly as Elian remembered. Overgrown at the edges, the path barely visible under years of neglect. The groundskeepers didn’t come here — there was nothing to tend, officially. Just old stone and old plants doing what they wanted.

Elian walked slowly.

Feeling.

The quality of the ground under his feet was different here. He’d noticed it before and categorized it as age — the particular spiritual density of a place that had been left alone long enough to develop its own character.

But now he walked it differently. Looking for something specific.

Riven walked behind him. Sable beside him.

None of them spoke.

The further in they went, the cleaner it felt. Not empty. Full — but in a different way from the rest of the palace. Like a room that had been carefully maintained rather than abandoned.

Something is here, Elian thought.

He stopped.

In the corner where the old wall met the east wing’s foundation — barely visible under twenty years of climbing ivy and ground cover — was stone. Carved stone. The specific shape of something that had been built with intention.

"There," Elian said.

They stood in front of it.

A shrine. Small. Different from anything else on the palace grounds — the style foreign, the carvings unfamiliar, the arrangement of the stones deliberate in a way that spoke of a specific tradition Elian didn’t fully recognize.

The queen’s faith. Brought from the western provinces. Built here so she could pray in a language her god understood.

Twenty years of ivy over it.

But underneath the ivy—

"It’s clean," Sable said quietly.

She was right. Under everything, the stone was clean. Not weathered the way stone weathered when it was truly abandoned. Kept. Like something had been keeping it.

Elian looked at the shrine.

Are you here, he thought. After all this time, are you still here.

The east garden was very quiet.

And then, very faintly, in the way that divine presences made themselves known when they chose to — the air changed.

Just slightly.

Elian felt his breath catch.

There you are, he thought.

"The shrine," Elian said, standing in front of it. "She built this herself?"

"According to the records," Riven said. "She commissioned the stone. Arranged for it to be built in a style from her home territory. Came here to pray regularly." He paused. "The staff remember her visiting. Said she was always peaceful afterward."

Elian looked at the carved stone.

At the style of it — foreign, distinct from anything else on the palace grounds. Built with intention by someone who had come a long way from home and wanted something familiar to pray to.

She brought her faith with her, he thought. Her god. Her tradition.

And when she died, the shrine was abandoned. But the god — the god might not have left.

He looked at the air around the shrine.

The quality of it was different here. He’d noticed it before and attributed it to age. Now he noticed it differently.

Not age, he thought. Presence.

Something was here.

Something that had been here a long time and was being very quiet about it.

"If the deity is still here," Sable said, "it would have been present for everything. For twenty years of this palace’s history."

"It would have seen things," Riven said. "Felt things. Known things that no record captured."

They looked at the shrine.

"It might not want to talk to us," Elian said.

"It might not," Sable agreed. "But we have to try."

She was right.

They always had to try.

Elian looked at the carved stone.

Are you here, he thought. After all this time, are you still here?

The air changed.

Just slightly.

Just enough.

There you are.

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