Betrayed by My Ex, Marked by His Alpha Emperor Brother novel Chapter 122

Chapter 122: Chapter 122

Elara’s POV

The storage closet smelled like old ink and forgotten things.

I shifted on the narrow chair. Its wooden slats dug into my spine. A broken printing crystal rolled off a shelf and clinked against the stone floor. I didn’t bother picking it up.

Then I saw the wall.

Not all of it—just a section to my left, between two crooked shelving units. The surface looked different there. Smoother. Faintly luminous, like moonlight trapped under ice. I leaned closer. My breath fogged against it, and the fog dissolved instantly, absorbed into the surface.

One-way enchanted glass.

I’d read about these during my time in the archives. Warding glass. Installed in sensitive palace chambers so security officers could observe without being seen. From this side, it was perfectly transparent. From the other side, it would look like nothing more than a plain stone wall.

And on the other side was my old office.

My desk. My chair. My filing cabinets with the brass handles I’d polished myself. The window where afternoon light used to pour in while I sorted through treaty documents and military correspondence.

Sylvia Vance sat behind that desk now.

She’d changed the arrangement. The filing crystals were organized by color instead of classification priority—pretty, but inefficient. A vase of burgundy roses sat where my reference stack used to be. Decorative. Impractical.

She looked impeccable. Her burgundy court gown was tailored to perfection, cinched at the waist with a silver clasp shaped like a crescent moon. Her dark hair was swept into an elegant chignon without a single strand out of place. Her posture was flawless. Spine straight. Shoulders back. Chin at the precise angle that conveyed both deference and confidence.

I looked down at myself.

My cardigan had already wrinkled from sitting on this awful chair. There was a pale stain near the collar where baby Lyra had spit up during her last feeding. I’d thought I could hide it. I couldn’t.

I could feel the hollows under my eyes. The sharp jut of my collarbones. My hair hung in a loose ponytail that I’d tied in a rush because Lyra had started crying again right as I was leaving.

Mortal nanny.

Sylvia’s voice from a recent day echoed through my skull. I pressed my palms flat against my thighs and told myself to breathe.

Then the office door opened, and Kaelen walked in.

My heart clenched so hard I thought it might stop.

He was wearing the charcoal court tunic. The one I’d bought him for a past birthday. I remembered choosing it—running my fingers over the fabric in the tailor’s shop, imagining how the dark color would contrast against his skin. The silver thread along the collar had been my suggestion. A subtle detail. Something only someone who knew him well would notice.

He looked devastating in it.

His dark hair was pushed back from his face. His jaw was set with that focused, commanding tension he carried during working hours. And his eyes—those deep gold eyes that turned almost silver in certain light—were exactly that shade now. Bright. Sharp. Imperial.

He said something to Sylvia. I couldn’t hear the words through the glass. But I saw his lips move. Saw him gesture toward a document on the desk.

Sylvia rose immediately. She greeted him and came around the desk—my desk—standing beside him. Close. Close enough that her shoulder nearly brushed his arm. She pointed at something on the parchment. He leaned in to look, saying something low.

She laughed at his words.

Watching them, I felt incredibly small and pathetic.

He almost smiled. Not a full smile. Just the slight softening at the corner of his mouth that I knew so intimately. The one that meant he was amused but trying not to show it.

I used to make him do that. During late nights in this very office, when I’d catch some absurd error in a diplomatic letter and read it aloud in a mocking voice. He’d press his lips together and pretend to be stern, and I’d keep going until that corner of his mouth betrayed him.

Sylvia made it look effortless.

She spoke again. Animated. Confident. Her hands moved gracefully as she explained whatever point she was making. Kaelen watched her with full attention, nodding occasionally.

They looked like they fit. The powerful emperor and his elegant, capable advisor. Two wolves operating in perfect synchronization. She matched his energy—poised, controlled, professional.

Some time ago, a maintenance worker had locked the door from the outside, and I was forced to watch them act like a perfect pair.

I pressed my forehead against the enchanted glass. It was cool. Indifferent.

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