The hallway stretched long and pale ahead of Catherine, stone floors polished to a muted sheen. Portraits of former deans lined the walls, their gazes fixed in permanent judgment; men who had once believed their authority unassailable.
She walked beneath them without haste.
Her steps were measured, unhurried, not because she lacked urgency, but because she had already decided the outcome. In another life, she had walked through war tents and burning corridors the same way, when panic belonged to others and command belonged to her. Old institutions recognized that bearing. They sensed inevitability the way animals sensed storms.
No one stopped her.
She had been told Dr. Vale was holed up inside Meridon University History Department, a place she technically did not have access to. It was a rule meant to remind her where she stood.
Catherine had never mistaken rules for law. She had ruled in a time where laws bent under siege and survival demanded interpretation. Rules were tools. And tools could be dismantled.
She would reclaim what was hers.
So, she dressed for it.
The muted champagne dress moved with disciplined grace, structured enough to command respect, soft enough to belong in daylight. It caught the institutional light without seeking it. Power, she knew, did not shine; it endured. A narrow gold-toned belt marked her waist with intention, not ornament. Everything about her was chosen. Nothing accidental.
The navy tailored coat worn open framed her like a declaration. Navy spoke the language of universities. She, who once was a Queen in a court that despised her, had defended ideas under sharper scrutiny than academic theft, in rooms where mistakes cost lives.
They would not intimidate her now. Yes, his betrayal caught her off guard. But that was not going to define her.
The ivory baroque pearl necklace rested against her chest, weighty in a way only real things were. Her phone hung discreetly beneath it, an extension of her presence. Each irregular pearl refused uniformity. Catherine approved. History was never smooth. Survival required adaptation.
Alexander had chosen well.
Her shoes made no sound on the stone. Silence was a weapon. In war, noise drew arrows. Here, it drew attention. Let them assume calm. Let them believe she was unarmed.
She was not.
The structured ivory purse at her side held papers aligned with care—evidence, timelines, correspondence. She had not come to plead. She had come to prove.
Queens did not argue their right to rule; they demonstrated it.
Her makeup was restrained. Her hair pinned precisely, no loose ends, no weaknesses. The softened tendrils were deliberate. Even conquerors had learned to appear human.
She did not look like a student. She did not look like staff.
She looked like consequence.
And so, the hallway yielded to her, stone and silence parting as she advanced toward a meeting Dr. Vale still believed he controlled, unaware that the moment she arrived, the war had already turned.
*****
Meanwhile, in the History Department, a young woman knocked on a faculty office door bearing the brass plate:
Dr. Maximilian L. Whitmore
Her knock was soft, practiced, the kind designed to sound charming, demure, and irresistible. Her heart thudded wildly against her ribs. Perhaps today she could move the immovable ice mountain. Perhaps today he would finally see her.
At just thirty, he had amassed an enviable number of laureates in the field of history, particularly medieval kingdoms, weaponry, and artifacts of war. Accolades followed his name like obedient footnotes.
And not least of all…
He was a Whitmore.
If she could capture his heart…
"Come in," he said. "Leave the door open," he added, just like he did to every female who entered his office.
Maximilian looked up from his papers, pushing his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose. The simple motion subdued none of the sharpness of his piercing blue eyes. His voice was quiet, unreadable.
She entered with a smile too bright for the dim, book-lined office. The first thing she noticed was the Borzoi stretched across the carpet—long-limbed, ethereal, draped like a living relic from a forgotten empire.
"Oh my god, Professor, he's adorable," she cooed, stepping closer with the confidence of someone accustomed to instant affection.
The Borzoi did not look at her.
He merely turned his head slowly and deliberately, and stared through her, the way royalty acknowledged a peasant who had spoken out of turn. Undeterred, she crouched, letting her dress fall artfully around her legs.
"Hi, sweetheart," she whispered. "Who's a cute dog?"
Maximilian's pen paused. His right hand throbbed faintly, the wound still fresh, but her voice irritated him more.
"He doesn't respond to that," he said without lifting his eyes.
She giggled. "Oh, come on. Everyone likes being called cute."
The Borzoi's ears flicked once in an almost offended gesture, before he rose. Graceful. Tall. Even kneeling, she was eye-level with him. He regarded her with ancient, glacial elegance, as though deciding whether she was worth the effort of acknowledgment.
She reached out to pet him.
The dog stepped away.
Not abruptly or fearfully, but dismissively, as though proximity to her perfume offended his dignity.
"Oh," she laughed again, the sound thinning. "Shy?"
"He's not shy," Maximilian said, finally meeting her gaze. Calm. Steady. Unmoved. "He's selective."
Her bravado cracked, just a hair, before she straightened and leaned against his desk, forcing a playful pout. "I suppose he takes after his owner. Stoic. Hard to impress."
Then panic crept into her voice. "You're hurt!" She reached for his hand.
Maximilian clicked his tongue, a sound of mild dismissal, avoiding her hand, not minding her playful pout, and returned to grading, one brow lifting faintly, his voice turning deeper, colder… final. "Not hard to impress," he corrected. "Just… unmoved by theatrics."
The Borzoi circled once and lay beside his chair, long muzzle resting on elegant paws, pale eyes fixed on her with silent judgment.
For the first time, she felt assessed.
"And," Maximilian added coldly, "he's never been cuddly. Neither of us are."
Silence settled… heavy, immovable.
The Borzoi blinked once, slowly. The regal equivalent of turning his back.
She excused herself moments later. The air was too dense. Too stressful. She couldn't stay. She was never dismissed like this before by anyone. It was like being in the presence of a tyrant in medieval times. She felt like she'd be thrown to the pigs for the amusement of the tyrant if she stayed a moment longer.
Maximilian did not watch her leave. Neither did his dog.
They had already dismissed her.
*****
Catherine's determined gaze swept the corridor, skimming polished doors and brass nameplates as she searched for Dr. Gibson, the office where Dr. Vale had apparently taken refuge. Her stride was purposeful, her mind narrowed to one objective.
Then her eyes caught on another name.
Prof. Dr. Maximilian L. Whitmore
Her composure faltered.
She stopped mid-step, breath catching before she could stop it. The door stood half-open, neither invitation nor barrier, just enough space to acknowledge her existence. Just enough to tempt fate.
Her heart began to pound.
In both this life and the one before, there had only been a handful of moments like this. Moments that split everything into before and after. Forks in the road where choice disguised itself as coincidence.
For reasons she did not want to examine too closely, this felt like one of them.
She drew in a slow breath, steadying herself. It didn't matter what he did now. History professor… of all things. Of all the lives a former warrior king could choose, he lectured about the past instead of bleeding in it.
Absurd.
And irrelevant.
She was here for her future. For her work. For what had been taken from her. She should not be distracted by ghosts, especially not one she had nearly killed the last time they stood face to face.
She should walk away.
She should ignore him.
She should remember the blade in her hand, the look in his eyes, the way blood had rewritten the air between them.
But the door was open.
And she was already slowing.
Before she realized it, her feet had carried her closer. Before she could reason herself out of it, she had chosen, once again, to linger beneath the weight of a past she insisted no longer owned her.
Perhaps it still did.
I'll just talk to him, she told herself. I need to know why he was there that night.
Her brother would uncover the truth eventually, but this was different. This was knowledge she needed to claim with her own hands.
To protect my family, she insisted, as though they depended on her vigilance alone. To warn him.
Excuses… each one carefully constructed to disguise the truth she refused to name.
She was being pulled.
Fate had always been like this with him. Silent. Patient. Unrelenting. Like a moth drawn helplessly to flame, Catherine stepped toward the doorway.
Toward the man who had once been the one she loved and hated with all her heart: her enemy king.
And toward the past, she had not yet defeated.