Guarded by the Crown

A quiet seamkeeper is targeted by palace whispers and a stolen key. The only guard she trusts is ordered away, so she and Cassian fight back with witnesses, ink, and a love that refuses to be used as bait. Eveline has survived the royal court by being quiet, useful, and forgettable. She stitches crowns and gowns, keeps her eyes lowered, and learns the palace's oldest rule: never give anyone a reason to notice you.Then someone does.A voice finds her at the edge of night and speaks her name like a claim. A ribbon meant for restricted archives appears where it should not. A small key slides under her door like a warning that the palace can reach her whenever it wants. And just as Eveline realizes she is no longer invisible, the one person who treats her fear as truth is ordered away.Cassian is a crown guard trained to keep his feelings locked behind protocol. He knows how power hides in polite words and how "e;stability"e; can mean control. When council pressure tightens and corridors turn into stages, he refuses to become bait in someone else's story, even as his presence beside Eveline becomes its own kind of risk.With Althea holding the line through witnesses and ink, Eveline must choose what she has never chosen before: to be named, to be recorded, and to stop letting the palace decide what her heart is allowed to want. Because in a court built on whispers, the most dangerous thing isn't scandal.It's truth spoken in daylight.