00:00Maya stared at the photograph Christina had left behind.
00:03Adrian, younger, standing beside a woman in white, at what could only be a wedding,
00:09asked him what happened to his first wife.
00:11She didn't sleep that night.
00:13By the time the palace car arrived to take her to the consulate the next morning,
00:18she'd made a decision.
00:19She wasn't moving into that guest wing, wasn't signing anything,
00:23wasn't playing pretend fiancé to a man who might be hiding something far darker
00:28than a broken engagement.
00:30When Adrian met her in the consulate hallway,
00:33smiling like the previous night hadn't happened,
00:36Maya held up the photograph without a word.
00:39His smile disappeared instantly.
00:42Where did you get that? he asked,
00:44voice suddenly ice cold in a way she hadn't heard from him before.
00:48Christina, Maya said.
00:50She said to ask you what happened to your first wife, so I'm asking.
00:55Adrian didn't answer right away.
00:57He led her into an empty sitting room, closed the door, and sat down heavily,
01:02like the weight of the question had physically landed on him.
01:06Her name was Isabel, he said finally.
01:09We married when I was 22.
01:11It wasn't public.
01:13It wasn't supposed to be.
01:14Not yet.
01:16My father arranged it the same way he arranged everything,
01:19but Isabel and I actually fell in love during the engagement.
01:23For a while, I thought I'd gotten lucky.
01:25What happened? Maya asked.
01:28Six months into the marriage, there was an accident, Adrian said, staring at the floor.
01:34A car, a private road, outside the summer palace.
01:38She didn't survive.
01:40Maya's anger softened into something more complicated.
01:43Adrian, I'm sorry.
01:45But then why would Christina say she asterisk disappeared asterisk?
01:49Why frame it like the palace erased her?
01:52Adrian's jaw tightened.
01:53Because officially, Isabel Voss doesn't exist.
01:57My father had every record of the marriage sealed.
02:00No death certificate under her married name.
02:03No public mourning.
02:05No mention in the royal archive.
02:07As far as the world knows, I was never married at all.
02:10Why would he hide something like that?
02:13Maya asked, stunned.
02:15You don't know my father, Adrian said.
02:18A grieving prince is a liability.
02:21A single, available prince is an asset.
02:24Someone he could still use to build the next alliance.
02:27The next Christina.
02:28The next arrangement.
02:30He didn't erase Isabel to protect me.
02:32He erased her to protect the value of my name.
02:35Maya sat in silence, absorbing the full weight of what she just agreed to become part of.
02:41A family that didn't just perform love for the cameras, but erased real love entirely, when it stopped being useful.
02:48That's the family you want me to marry into, she said quietly.
02:53That's the family I want to prove I'm not.
02:55Adrian said,
02:56Maya, everything I told you about wanting one night of being no one, that started the night I buried Isabel
03:03in secret, with no one but my closest guard allowed to attend.
03:07I've spent three years since then, being exactly what my father built me to be.
03:12I don't want to do that anymore.
03:14Meanwhile, across the consulate, Christina Ashworth sat in a private meeting with her own family's advisors, because Christina, it turned
03:24out, had never actually wanted the marriage to Adrian in the first place.
03:29The lock arm.
03:30The engagement was never about love, Christina told her father through a video call, her composed exterior slipping slightly.
03:37It was about the Ashworth trade agreement, riding on it.
03:42If the marriage collapses without a replacement plan, we lose leverage in three separate ports, then create a replacement plan,
03:49her father said coldly.
03:52You have leverage of your own, Christina.
03:54Use the Isabel story.
03:56Make the palace desperate enough to renegotiate terms directly with us, instead of walking away.
04:01Christina closed her eyes briefly.
04:04She hadn't leaked the photograph to hurt Maya out of jealousy.
04:08She'd done it to remind the crown exactly how much damage she was capable of, and exactly how much they
04:14still needed her family's cooperation.
04:16Maya returned to her temporary room that evening, mind-spinning from everything she'd learned, when a soft knock came at
04:24her door.
04:25She expected Adrian.
04:26Instead, she found an older woman in a modest palace uniform, one of the household staff, grey-haired, kind-eyed,
04:36holding a small wooden box.
04:37You're the girl from the accident, the woman said.
04:40My name is Helene.
04:42I served Princess Isabel for four years before she passed.
04:46Maya's breath caught.
04:48You knew her.
04:49I loved her like my own daughter, Helene said, stepping inside and closing the door quietly behind her.
04:55And I've watched this family bury her memory for three years, waiting for someone brave enough or foolish enough to
05:03ask the right questions.
05:05She held out the wooden box.
05:07These are Isabel's private letters.
05:09Helene said, before you decide whether to trust this family, you should know the truth she never got to tell
05:15anyone herself.
05:16Maya opened the box with trembling hands and unfolded the first letter, dated just two weeks before the accident that
05:25killed Isabel.
05:26The handwriting was rushed, urgent, nothing like the composed penmanship of the earlier letters in the stack.
05:32If anything happens to me, don't let them call it an accident.
05:37I found something in the East Wing archive I wasn't supposed to find.
05:42I tried to tell Adrian, but I'm afraid someone is already watching me.
05:47If you're reading this and I'm gone, please, don't trust that road was ever safe.
05:52Maya's hands went cold.
05:54She looked up at Helene.
05:56Are you saying Isabel's death wasn't an accident?
06:00Helene's expression was grim.
06:01I'm saying no one in this palace has ever asked that question out loud.
06:06Until now.
06:08Maya rushed to find Adrian, letter in hand, heart pounding with the weight of what she'd just read.
06:15She found him in the consulate's private study, but he wasn't alone.
06:19King Frederick stood across from him, and between them, on the desk, sat a single item that stopped Maya cold
06:26in the doorway.
06:27The exact same wooden box Helene had just given her, except this one was already open, already empty.
06:35Looking for something, the king asked, turning to face Maya with an expression she couldn't read at all.
06:41Adrian's face went pale as he looked between his father and the letter clutched in Maya's hand.
06:47And, father, Adrian said slowly, what did you do with Isabel's letters?
06:52King Frederick's only response was a thin, unreadable smile.
06:56You should be more careful, he said quietly, about which staff members you decide to trust.
07:03Coming up in episode four, the East Wing, Maya and Adrian risk everything to uncover what Isabel really found,
07:10while Christina makes her boldest move yet.
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