“He kept saying the same thing,” Abigail recalled.
“What did he say?” Prince William asked.
Abigail closed her eyes.
“He said, ‘The man took my star.’”
The king suddenly leaned forward.
A star.
Prince Ethan had owned a distinctive gold star pendant gifted by his mother.
It had disappeared with him.
The room fell silent.
For the first time, there was a genuine lead.
As the investigation intensified, Abigail confronted Victoria privately.
Her sister finally broke.
Years of lies poured out between tears.
“I found documents years ago,” Victoria admitted.
“Documents about the missing boy.”
Abigail stared at her.
“You knew?”
“I didn’t know everything.”
“Then why stay silent?”
Victoria buried her face in her hands.
“Because Lord Richard Blackwood threatened me.”
The name immediately changed everything.
Lord Blackwood was one of the most influential noblemen in the country.
Powerful.
Connected.
Dangerous.
“He knew about my lies,” Victoria whispered. “He said if I spoke, he would expose everything and destroy me.”
Abigail felt both anger and pity.
For years, Victoria had made terrible choices.
But now fear had trapped her too.
Before leaving, Victoria revealed one final detail.
“The boy wasn’t called Ethan anymore.”
Abigail stopped.
“What was his name?”
Victoria looked up.
“Noah Parker.”
Abigail nearly dropped the file in her hands.
Because she knew Noah.
Very well.
He volunteered regularly at a veterans’ center only minutes from her home in North Carolina.
A respectful seventeen-year-old with a kind heart and an old soul.
The possibility seemed impossible.
Yet suddenly every piece began fitting together.
Days later, the king, Prince William, Lady Charlotte Ashford, and Abigail quietly traveled to North Carolina.
From outside the veterans’ center, they watched through a window.
Noah was repairing bicycles.
Laughing with elderly veterans.
Helping a disabled man carry supplies.
Completely unaware that an entire kingdom had spent years searching for him.
The king’s eyes filled with tears.
“He looks like her,” he whispered, thinking of his late daughter.
When Noah finally noticed the visitors, he walked outside.
“Can I help you?”
Abigail’s heart broke.
How could anyone explain this?
How could they tell a teenager that everything he believed about his life might be wrong?
The conversation lasted hours.
Eventually, photographs were shown.
Records examined.
Questions asked.
Then Noah quietly disappeared into another room.
When he returned, he carried a small box.
Inside was a gold star-shaped pendant.
The same pendant Prince Ethan had lost years earlier.
The king began crying openly.
Lady Charlotte covered her mouth.
Prince William stared in disbelief.
Noah looked overwhelmed.
“I don’t understand any of this.”
Neither did Michael and Grace Parker.
The couple who had raised him.
When they arrived, they explained they had always believed Noah was an orphan with no surviving relatives.
They had loved him as their own son.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.
The truth shattered everyone.
Especially Noah.
Unable to process everything, he left alone to think.
Abigail followed him.
They sat near a lake until sunset.
“You don’t have to become someone else,” she told him gently.
Noah stared across the water.
“But what if everyone expects me to?”
“Then they’re wrong.”
He looked at her.
“You really believe that?”
Abigail smiled.
“I believe nobody gets to decide who you are except you.”