I Put on My Sister’s Dress, Who Had Fled on Her Wedding Day, and When I Saw the Groom, the Entire Hall Suddenly Fell Silent

That night, when Gideon Mercer drank the drink I had given him, I thought for the first time that perhaps I might not wake alive in the morning.

In his room, the fireplace crackled quietly. Beyond the windows, the northern wind struck the tower walls, while half-open documents lay on the table. I held a small clay cup in my hand. The smell of burned cinnamon remained on its rim.

Gideon drank it to the end.

“Now will you tell me why you took away my medicine?” he asked me.

“Because it was not medicine.”

His gray eyes hardened.

“Careful, Tessa.”

“I have been careful all my life. That is exactly why I noticed that every evening they give you the same root, in the same amount and at the same time.”

He put the cup on the table. His fingers tensed, but nothing escaped his face.

“Are you knowledgeable about plants?”

“My mother taught me. For years I cared for the sick, before anyone here remembered that I existed.”

The truth was that I was still a stranger in this palace. A few hours earlier, in the church, everyone had been waiting for my sister, Camille. But I entered in her white dress and told the man whose wife I was supposed to become that the bride had fled because his injured leg had frightened her.

Camille’s letter still burned in my heart: “I would rather lose everything than spend my whole life with a broken man.”

Gideon did not know about the letter. Helena, my stepmother, tried to hide it, but I read it to him myself. I did not want my marriage to be built on a lie.

“There is willow bark in this cup,” I told him. “It will ease the pain, but if someone is deliberately stopping your body, it cannot fix that in one night.”

He chuckled briefly.

“You entered my house and are already putting everyone under suspicion.”

“I entered not your house, but your life. There is a difference.”

This time he did not smile.

There was a knock at the door. His doctor entered, Doctor Rowen, a tall man with copper-colored spectacles. In his hand he held the same dark bottle.

“My king, I have brought your night dose.”

Gideon looked at the bottle.

“I do not need it today.”

Rowen looked toward me.

“Is this the new wife’s decision?”

“It is my decision,” Gideon answered calmly.

The doctor pressed his lips together.

“Then I hope you will deal with the pain yourself in the morning.”

“Go, Rowen.”

The door closed, but his smell remained in the room—a mixture of bitter herbs and damp leather.

Gideon slowly extended his leg. The iron brace gave a light chime against the floor.

“If you are right,” he said, “this is not merely medicine. It is betrayal.”

“Then find out who benefits from your weakness.”

“And why do you want to do that?”

I did not have an answer ready for this question. I wanted to say that marriage was only a bargain. I wanted to make it seem as though nothing affected me.

But his one remaining hand, clutching the arm of the chair, stood before my eyes.

“Because I am not going to lose another person because others hid the truth from me.”

Gideon watched me for a long time.

Then he opened the desk drawer and took out a small copper key.

“The northern pharmacy storeroom is locked at night. All the medicine records are kept there. If you want proof, you must search before the morning guard shift.”

He placed the key in my hand.

“Will you go alone?”

“No,” I answered. “You will come too.”

For the first time, something appeared in his eyes that was not suspicion, but something resembling trust.

At that same moment, a heavy bell sounded from beneath the palace. Once. Twice. A third time.

Gideon stood up, but his left leg failed him. He leaned against the wall.

“This bell is heard only when a stranger enters the palace.”

Footsteps stopped beyond the door.

Then someone grasped the handle, and I still held the key in my hand…

The door handle slowly descended, but Gideon managed it first and said loudly:

“Come in.”

His guard, Marco, appeared in the doorway. Drops of snow lay on his beard, and he held a folded cloak.

“My king, two horses were found in the lower courtyard. The riders have fled.”

Gideon looked toward me.

“We are going to the pharmacy storeroom.”

Marco’s face changed.

“Now?”

“Now.”

“Your leg…”

“My leg is still mine, Marco.”

The guard lowered his head, but worry remained in his eyes. I took his cloak and draped it over Gideon’s shoulders. The heavy fabric added warm steam to his breathing.

“If someone is waiting for you there,” I whispered, “they are waiting for you to be a weak king. That is why you must go.”

“Do you give orders too?”

“Only when the man receiving orders is stubborn.”

Marco hid a cough. Gideon cast him such a look that the cough stopped at once.

At one o’clock at night, the northern corridors were almost empty. The sound of our steps scattered across the stone floor. The iron tip of Gideon’s cane knocked sharply with every touch. I walked beside him and counted steps so that I would not notice his strained breathing.

The pharmacy door was in the lower basement. The copper lock was covered with rust. The key jammed twice before I turned it all the way.

Inside stood the smell of dried leaves and old paper.

“Records on the left,” Marco said. “Medicines on the right.”

“Have you been here?” I asked.

“We guards inspect everything.”

“Then you know who took these bottles.”

Marco did not answer.

Gideon turned his head toward him.

“Marco.”

“Usually Doctor Rowen took them. But during the last three months, Lady Helena’s servant, Elder, sometimes carried the bottles away.”

The word hung in the air.

Helena.

My stepmother, who that same morning had brought Camille’s crown to my room and told me that if I refused the wedding, the Monroe lands would be lost.

“Why would the stepmother want to stop your recovery?” I asked.

Gideon took a small book from the cabinet.

“The treaty of the northern lands remains in force during my lifetime. If I cannot rule, the council will appoint an heir. If I have no heir, the agreement will collapse and the Monroe property will be taken for border defense.”

“So Helena wanted you alive, but powerless.”

“Or someone she values more wanted that.”

I opened the book. One page came out and fell to the floor. Marks of medicine dispensations could be read on the paper. All the records had the same handwriting, but the signature on the last page was different.

I brought the candle closer.

“These letters do not belong to Helena.”

Gideon bent down, but his leg tensed. I put my hand on his shoulder.

“Do not bend down.”

“I do not like relying on someone else.”

“I also do not like my husband falling onto the floor in the middle of a basement.”

He looked toward me suddenly.

“That is the first time you called me husband.”

I fell silent too. I still held the rough fabric of his cloak between my fingers.

At the end of the basement I noticed a glass cabinet. Its lock was broken, but one small flask stood inside. Its label read: “Night Root — for the royal court only.”

A red wax mark was visible on the flask’s stopper.

I recognized the mark.

Helena’s letters had a seal like it too.

“Is this enough?” I asked.

Gideon took the flask.

“No. This proves only that the bottle was here.”

Then the sound of iron falling came from the corner of the basement.

Marco drew his sword.

“No one should be there.”

I swept the lantern’s light across the wall. A small door appeared behind the shelves. The door was open.

A narrow tunnel leading inside let in cold air from the snow.

Gideon clenched his teeth.

“Only members of the royal family know about this tunnel.”

Suddenly a woman’s voice sounded from the darkness:

“Then perhaps it is time to tell the family the truth.”

I raised the lantern forward.

Camille stood at the end of the tunnel.

She was still wearing the wedding dress. The white fabric was stained with mud, and she held a long knife in her hand. Beside her stood the man whom everyone in the city thought had died in battle three years earlier…

The man standing beside Camille stepped into the light, and Marco’s sword immediately pointed toward him.

“Do not move,” the guard said.

The man raised his hands. An old scar crossed his face, but I still recognized him.

“Silas Monroe,” I whispered.

My half-brother. Helena’s son. The person at whose funeral the whole family had cried three years earlier.

Camille gripped the knife more tightly.

“He is not a ghost, Tessa. He is alive.”

Gideon’s voice became cold as ice.

“Why were you hiding?”

Silas smiled, but there was fear in his eyes.

“Because your advisers had ordered my murder. I learned that the council was using your illness. Helena told me that if I returned home, she would lose both of us.”

“Helena knew that you were alive?” I asked.

“Of course. She knew everything.”

Camille suddenly shouted at me:

“You cannot understand! I did not want to marry this man!”

“Then why was running away not enough?” I asked. “Why did you leave me your dress, your debt, and your shame?”

Tears appeared in her eyes.

“Because you could always be the sacrifice. No one was looking at you.”

Those words turned out to be more painful than a knife.

Gideon raised his hand.

“Enough. Tessa, give me the flask.”

I handed him the flask. He opened the stopper and poured the remaining powder onto a handkerchief. With the suspicion he had learned from Rowen, he touched it with his fingertip, then brought it to his nose.

“It is the same root,” he said. “But there is another substance here.”

Marco knelt down.

“What substance?”

“Iron wolf resin. In a large dose it stops regeneration and causes internal bleeding.”

My stomach contracted.

“So they were slowly killing you every day.”

Gideon answered me:

“Yes.”

His calmness was more frightening than shouting.

At that moment the sound of footsteps came from above. Then Helena’s voice was heard:

“Silas, have you come out? Everything is ready.”

Camille stepped back, pale.

“Mother does not know that we are here.”

“She knows,” I said. “She simply does not know how many people are listening.”

Marco opened a small copper tube attached to the wall. From there every voice went directly to the royal hall. Probably in old times kings listened to secret conversations exactly this way.

Gideon winked at me.

“Let everything be recorded.”

Marco activated the mechanism. Inside, a small wax plate began to turn.

Helena entered the tunnel, followed by Doctor Rowen and two armed men.

“Camille, put down the knife,” she told her. “Your husband will soon no longer be a problem.”

Gideon moved forward despite the pain in his leg.

“Have I been a problem for a long time already?”

The color left Helena’s face.

Rowen stepped back.

“This is impossible.”

“No,” said Gideon. “What was impossible was that you thought I would never find out.”

Helena looked toward me.

“Tessa, do not believe him. I did everything to save your family.”

“You destroyed my family.”

“If Gideon died without an heir, the council would take everything from you!”

“So you decided to kill him slowly?”

Helena’s lips tightened.

“You were only a replacement anyway.”

Gideon said in a cold voice:

“Repeat those words once more, if you dare.”

But Helena had already realized that everything was over. Marco took the wax plate and raised it into the light.

“Her confession was recorded,” he said.

Rowen tried to escape, but guards were waiting for him at the door. Silas put the knife on the floor and fell to his knees.

And Camille stopped in front of me.

“Tessa, please. I did not know they intended to kill him.”

“But you knew that I had to enter in place of his life.”

She had no answer.

That night the main secret was revealed: Gideon’s health had not been ruined in battle. Members of his own court had been poisoning him in order to seize power.

We thought that now only justice was needed.

But in the morning, before Helena was led from her room, a foreign messenger rushed into the royal hall. He held a ring stained with blood.

“My king,” he said, “the western army has crossed the border. They know that you are no longer powerless.”

Gideon saw the ring and his face changed.

“This is my father’s ring.”

The messenger bowed his head.

“And the letter says that the war has already begun…”