Series Premise: Hidden in the shadows, poised to challenge the status quo are enemies of the state. The loyalties and honesty of family and friends will be tested. ‘Keep your friends close, your enemies closer’.
Smoke and Mirrors Masterlist
Main Pairing: Liam Rys x F!MC Riley Brooks-Rys, OTP ‘LiRi’
2nd Pairings: Leo Rys x Amalas, Drake Walker x F! OC Delaney Leigh, Olivia Nevrakis x M! OC Alex Cossoy
*Most characters belong to Pixelberry Studios
*Not Beta’d, please excuse all errors
*Rating: M🔞*Series Warnings: NSFW material, sexual innuendo, adult language/swearing/drinking/gun violence. Not recommended for anyone under 18 years of age.
Chapter summary: It’s the night of the Harvest Ball at the Applewood estate. Cordonian nobility, along with the elite from neighboring kingdoms, attend to celebrate the season's bounty. Hidden in plain sight, are enemies of the state. In attendance are members of the Via Imperii - a secret society of powerful people based in Europe.
A/N: My submission for the Choices April Challenge 2025, prompt, “I’m not who I used to be.” @choicesapril2025 @liaromancewriter
🍎The lavish grandeur of the Applewood Estate ballroom shimmered beneath a cascade of glittering chandeliers, their crystal facets scattering golden light like stardust across the polished marble floor. Noblemen and women, adorned in opulent gowns and distinguished tailoring, glided through the ballroom with effortless grace. Laughter mingled with the soft strains of the orchestra as the Harvest Ball began—a cherished annual tradition meant to honor the year’s abundance and reaffirm delicate political alliances.
King Liam Rys of Cordonia positioned casually on a velvet-cushioned barstool, flanked by his older brother, Prince Leo, and his ever-loyal confidant, Sir Drake Walker. The three men shared a casual moment of levity along with their personal libation of choice amidst the stately atmosphere. Around them, the room swelled with nobles in glittering attire, each one more dazzling than the next while other guests began to relax at the bar.
Riley stood near the edge of the crowd, her heart fluttering with unease. The sparkle of the celebration couldn't mask the anxious knot twisting in her stomach. She didn’t understand why, but she felt an urgent pull toward Liam—her anchor in a whirlwind of royal obligations and public scrutiny. His mere presence had always calmed the storm inside her.
Across the ballroom, the towering double doors sprang open, drawing every eye toward the entrance. Gabriella Midsommar, King Eirik's younger sister and Princess of Moldova, made her entrance like a beauty queen on the arm of her brother. She was radiant—tall, curvaceous, with cascading waves of mohagony brown hair and piercing blue eyes. Her midnight-blue gown clung to her hourglass frame, the thigh-high slit revealing long, toned legs with every stride. The fabric shimmered like liquid sapphire under the ballroom lights.
With a feline elegance, Gabriella approached the bar, her gaze locked on Liam. She leaned in, her sultry laugh carrying just far enough to draw Riley’s attention. Normally, Riley was level-headed—pragmatic about Liam’s responsibilities as king. But something about Gabriella’s forwardness, her eyes lingering too long on Liam’s lips, ignited a flare of jealousy Riley couldn not suppress.
What she didn’t yet know was that the tension burning in her chest wasn’t just from envy—it was the first sign of a secret growing within her. A new life, fragile and unexpected, had already begun to stir inside her.
Liam, ever the diplomat, offered Gabriella a courteous smile. Still, when his gaze found Riley across the room, his expression softened instantly. Their eyes met, and the invisible tether between them pulled taut. He murmured a quick excuse to the nobles around him and strode toward her.
Leaning in close, his voice brushed her ear like silk. “Hey, you,” he whispered, his breath warm on her skin. Riley’s cheeks flushed with heat as a small, involuntary smile spread across her lips.
Liam marveled at his wife's hourglass figure unabashedly, taking her hand gently. He looked into her eyes, “Dance with me?”
She nodded, and together they stepped onto the dance floor. As the orchestra swelled, Liam drew her close, his hand splayed firmly against the small of her back. They moved in perfect sync, their bodies pressed together, spinning in rhythm beneath the chandeliers.
“You are breathtaking,” he murmured again, his lips brushing her temple.
“Thank you,” she replied, her voice barely audible, as she stretched up to place a lingering kiss on his lips.
As the music faded, he kissed her cheek and pulled away with a bittersweet smile. “Duty calls. I’ll come find you soon.”
“I’ll be waiting,” Riley said softly, watching him melt back into the crowd.
She turned, trying to shake the heaviness building in her chest, only to spot Olivia standing alone by the champagne tower, her expression unreadable.
“Olivia,” Riley greeted, approaching with cautious warmth.
“Riley,” Olivia replied coolly, her tone clipped.
“You okay? You seem… tense.”
“Oh, just living the dream,” Olivia replied dryly, her gaze fixed across the ballroom.
Riley followed it—and there she was again. Gabriella, laughing delicately, surrounded by fawning nobles, her hand fluttering to Liam’s shoulder with deliberate intimacy.
“Who is she?” Riley asked.
“Gabriella. Eirik's little sister,” Olivia replied, her tone brittle. “She’s been batting her lashes at Alex since the moment we arrived.”
Riley turned just in time to see Gabriella offering Liam an exaggerated curtsy, her bodice dipping dangerously low. Liam bowed politely, but his eyes flicked up to Riley with a fleeting, apologetic grin.
It wasn’t enough.
A surge of hot jealousy tore through Riley’s chest, irrational yet unstoppable. She knew she was being unfair—knew Liam’s heart belonged to her—but still, the image of Gabriella’s hand on his arm branded itself into her mind.
“You okay?” Olivia asked gently.
“I’m fine,” Riley replied, her voice too tight, her smile too practiced.
“You don’t look fine.”
“I just… feel a little off. Maybe I’ll lie down.”
Riley excused herself and made her way up the grand staircase, her heels clicking softly on the marble steps. In the east wing’s royal chambers, she collapsed onto the edge of her bed, trying to still her racing thoughts. The moon cast a silvery glow over the palace gardens below, painting a tranquil scene that stood in stark contrast to the chaos inside her.
Then—a voice outside her chamber doors. Strange. Ellie, William, and Stefan were with their grandmother for the weekend, and Mara rarely spoke aloud while standing guard.
These thoughts ran through her mind as she realized that the royal guards were not at their posts.
“Your Majesty, may I have a moment of your time?”
The door creaked open.
That wasn’t Mara’s voice.
Riley turned slowly, her pulse quickening.
“Riley, I need you to come with me.”
Lena.
Time seemed to slow.
Lena, who was supposed to be imprisoned in a high-security facility in France, stood in the doorway—unharmed, unbothered, and holding a gun.
Riley glanced quickly at the door, praying that Liam would be there.
"It's for your own good," she sneered.
Riley stumbled backward, her heart hammering in her chest. “Lena… how are you here?”
A sinister smirk curled across Lena’s lips. “That’s not important. I am not who I used to be.”
“What do you want?”
“Revenge,” she hissed, stepping closer. “For the life you stole from me.”
“I never stole anything,” Riley whispered, tears threatening to spill. “I love him.”
“SHUT UP!” Lena screamed, her fury unhinged. “You should never have been queen. That crown was mine!”
She raised the gun and fired.
The bullet shattered into the wall behind Riley. Dust and splinters rained down. Her ears rang. She couldn’t breathe.
A second shot exploded, this time striking the wall just inches above her head.
“Please,” Riley begged, trembling. “Let me go.”
“No,” Lena spat. “We’re going on a trip, you and I.”
She seized Riley’s arm, her grip iron-tight, dragging her down the staircase with terrifying force.
The gala music drifted from the ballroom—delicate piano chords, the clink of glasses, oblivious laughter.
No one knew.
No one saw.
Riley struggled, kicking against the marble steps, but Lena only tightened her grip. “Move!”
In the foyer, Riley’s breath hitched as they neared the main doors.
“Where are we going?” she asked, voice cracking.
“Far away. Where no one will ever find you. And when we get there, you’ll regret ever being born.”
As the ornate doors opened into the moonlit night, Riley turned her eyes skyward and whispered a prayer. For Liam.
The more times I read TRH, the more I feel that the writers just pulled Lena out of their ass for TRF.
When the MC and Olivia relive the latter’s memories, they realize that Queen Eleanor was pregnant, and they assume that she died while pregnant. The MC even goes so far as to speculate that maybe she was killed because she was pregnant. More on this in a moment.
It’s also mentioned in Liam’s last memory of her alive that she had just come back from an extended (but pointedly unspecified) period of time away on a trip, which in TRF, is said to be the trip she took to give birth to Lena in secret up in Vallenheim, because she was so afraid of the political climate in Cordonia at the time.
When the gang finds Queen Eleanor’s secret room with all her intel, books, secrets, and even her diary, it becomes clear that Eleanor left it all there for Liam to find. In her diary she even says as much, letting him know that that’s why she’s writing the letter to him: because she feels her enemies closing in, and that if something should happen to her, at least he would have that letter.
And throughout the diary, specifically in the letter to Liam, there’s no mention of Lena anywhere. You’d think that if Eleanor was in such a desperate state that she explicitly wrote a letter to Liam about feeling her enemies closing in and fearing for her life, that she would have mentioned Lena anywhere in the diary to alert Liam that he had a little sibling she gave birth to in secret months prior.
Alas, no such thing. Eleanor drank wine from the poisoned goblet and died that night.
You may stop me right here and say, “Why did Eleanor drink wine from the poisoned goblet if she was pregnant? Clearly she must not have been, and this theory has fallen apart.”
Well, we know Eleanor was hellbent on concealing the pregnancy, especially from Constantine, who was there when Godfrey gifted her the poisoned goblet. She probably felt that she had to imbibe at least a bit of alcohol to avoid suspicion in her husband. So perhaps Eleanor did drink the wine; as little as she could get away with.
We also know that the poisoned goblet didn’t act right away. Eleanor was able to finish her drink with Constantine, discreetly slip away to her secret room (where the goblet was found twenty years later by Liam and co.), get out of the passage, and then an undetermined amount of time later, the poison kicked in and she died.
After she died, the medical examiners determined the cause of her death to be poison, leading Constantine to test all the wines in the cellar. They also likely discovered she was pregnant when she died, which they definitely would have informed Constantine of. Given the nature of paranoia and secrecy of Constantine we’ve come to know over the course of the series, it’s probably safe to assume that he kept the discovery of her pregnancy a secret so as to not show any further signs of weakness within the monarchy.
So. With that out of the way, let’s go back to the MC speculating that Eleanor was assassinated because she was pregnant.
When the gang confronts Godfrey in the Auvernese prison in TRH book 3, Liam is understandably furious with him for killing his mother, saying, “You monster! She was your queen! …She was pregnant.”
You’d think this would evoke some sort of reaction from Godfrey. Surprise, shock, remorse, something. Anything. But he doesn’t react at all…which leads me to believe he was aware of her pregnancy somehow.
And yet he and Barthelemy still went through with their plot.
It was stated that the two had Eleanor killed because she was overextending her power and influencing Constantine, taking power away from the nobles who are “owed” it.
Given Godfrey’s lack of a reaction (what I presume to be because he and Barthelemy knew Eleanor was pregnant), I suspect that Godfrey and Barthelemy feared Eleanor’s pregnancy, should she choose to eventually disclose it to Constantine, would make her even more influential to him, not to mention further cementing her position as queen with another heir. So, the traitorous snakes that they are, they conspired together and had her killed before she could bring the pregnancy to light.
Because there was absolutely no mention of Lena anywhere in Eleanor’s secret room, nor through any of the investigations conducted by Liam or Olivia, I’m convinced that the writers originally had Godfrey and Barthelemy assassinate her because she was pregnant, just as the MC postulated, and tried to retcon it when they started working up to The Royal Finale and realized that having a secret Rys sibling could be a major plot point and weak link to exploit against the Big Bads.
