“You swore to keep Isabella hidden. Now you parade her before the entire court?”
Lady Catherine. I was sure of it.
“You’ll ruin me if they find out she’s mine.”
“Isn’t it a bit late for regret?” the man replied, his tone smooth as silk. “You gave me a daughter, and I’ve raised her well. All I ask is for what was promised—a place for my son in the palace.”
My heart lurched.
“You’ll jeopardize Cassian’s claim—”
“Only if you force my hand,” he said sharply. “We both know your son is the king’s mirror. But if it comes to scandal—if the nobles believe you were unfaithful after Cassian’s birth…”
A pause. A slow inhale.
“Do you think they’ll defend you? Or burn everything you’ve built?”
Silence.
“Secure Adrian’s future.”
Footsteps retreated. A snap of branches. And then—silence. I backed away slowly, blood pounding in my ears. Whatever that was… it wasn’t just palace drama. It was blackmail, plain and simple.
And I needed to tell someone.
But not now.
Not yet.
As I stepped back onto the main path, a familiar figure was waiting near the garden arch — hair red as flame in the moonlight, leaning slightly against a stone column like he’d been there all along.
“Adrian?” I blinked, startled. “You’re still here?”
He pushed off the column, a lazy grin playing on his face. “I was beginning to worry the stars had stolen you away.”
My brows lifted. “You think the stars want me?”
“I wouldn’t blame them,” he said, stepping closer. “But if they did, I’d have to convince them I saw you first.”
He reached for my hand again — not bold like before, but gentler now. His fingers were warm and calloused, but his touch was soft as he brushed his lips over my knuckles, just barely.
I felt the flutter of it — somewhere between my chest and stomach — and hated that it caught me off guard.
“Sleep well tonight, Princess,” he murmured, green eyes catching the moonlight. “The court may fade, the roses may wilt, but I imagine your laughter will still echo here tomorrow.”
I tried not to laugh, but it escaped anyway — soft and unexpected.
“You’re incorrigible,” I said, stepping back.
He tilted his head. “Is that a compliment?”
“That’s for me to know.”
“Then I’ll just have to spend more time around you until I find out.”
I turned, before I could say something foolish, and walked quickly toward the banquet doors. But I glanced over my shoulder. He was still there, watching, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips.
I turned the corner, ready to be alone for a few moments — and nearly walked straight into someone.
“Ah!” he exclaimed dramatically, catching my arm. “I knew the Valaran princess was fierce, but I didn’t think you’d try to assassinate me in the west wing.”
I blinked up into a pair of mismatched eyes. One golden, one a deep wine violet. His hair was silver, wind-tossed, and his grin was shameless.
“I wasn’t—”
“You were. But don’t worry. I’ll keep your secret.” He winked.
I tugged my arm away. “Who are you?”
He swept into a theatrical half-bow. “Prince Sylas of Drakenvyre. At your mercy and whim.”
I stared.
He leaned closer, voice dropping. “You have very expressive eyebrows.”
“I—what?”
“You just did a thing. Like this.” He raised one white brow in mock imitation. “It’s quite charming.”
“You’re ridiculous,” I muttered, brushing past him.
He turned to walk beside me anyway. “So they tell me.”
A soft sigh left my mouth as we neared the doors.
He smiled again — gentler now.
“Until we meet again, Princess.”
Inside, I found Kai leaning lazily against one of the pillars, swirling fruit wine in his glass.
“You were gone a while,” he said casually, though his eyes flicked sideways—sharp and curious.
“Just some air,” I replied.
He hummed in disbelief, but didn’t press.
Cassian approached a moment later, his expression unusually gentle.
“You okay?” he asked, handing me a honey cake.
“I am now.”
We lingered near the far edge of the ballroom, the music fading into a softer tune. For the first time in hours, no one was looking at us like chess pieces. I felt at peace after my rough walk through the garden, Still having lots to figure out regarding Catherine, Isabella, Adrian and the newly appearing prince.
I let it all slip my mind leaning my head on Kai’s shoulder.
“Can we stay like this a bit longer?” I murmured.
“Forever,” he said.
But I knew better.
The night blurred gently into memory, wrapped in music and the hush of things unspoken. We didn't talk about what came next — we just let the moment hold us. But by morning, reality had quietly returned, waiting at the edge of sunlight like a shadow we couldn’t shake.
We left the palace after breakfast not in secret, but quietly. The kind of quiet that asked not to be followed. Kai spoke a few words to the guards with that calm, clipped tone that always made people listen. Cassian walked a step ahead, not in disguise but not drawing attention either. He wore a deep green tunic, simple and well-fitted, and kept his gaze forward like he’d walked these streets all his life.
Gone were the glass corridors and cautious silences. Here, there was laughter that spilled like light. Someone had drawn stars in chalk across the stones. Ribbons of red and gold strung between balconies fluttered in the breeze as if the buildings were holding hands.
A baker’s son tried juggling pears and failed spectacularly, nearly toppling his brother. A trio of girls skipped by, arms linked and crowns made of folded parchment wobbling on their heads. Someone played a fiddle badly and far too fast.
And still, the city danced with it all.
We wandered through the old square.
The ivy-covered fountain still stood in its center, same smooth stone edges, same copper coins sunk to the bottom. Bonnie was flipping through a crate of old books with the urgency of someone looking for treasure. Soren hovered behind me, arms folded like always, but his eyes never left me.
I closed my eyes. In that moment, I wasn’t a princess. I wasn’t a problem. I wasn’t anything except a girl breathing in the scent of bread and riverwind.
“This,” I said softly, “feels like living.”
Kai leaned in, barely brushing his chin to the top of my head. “Careful. The palace might cry if it hears you.”
We bought honey cakes. Kai insisted on breaking one in half, even though he always gave me the larger piece. Cassian paid for a carved teacup from a potter’s stall and tucked it gently into Bonnie’s satchel when she wasn’t looking.
Down one street, a children’s puppet troupe had set up a makeshift curtain between crates. Their dragons were made of torn silk and gold-foil paper. One of the smaller children pointed at me and called out, “You can be the princess!”
I blinked. For a heartbeat, I forgot how to answer.
Cassian raised a brow but didn’t say a word. Just watched me quietly, the same way he did when I stood too close to a fire.
I knelt to watch the play, hiding behind my hood. The laughter of the crowd rose around me like wind through trees.
Then I heard him.
That voice — playful, bright, dangerously familiar.
“You’re not trying to assassinate me again, are you?”
I turned.
He stood at the edge of the fountain’s shadow, not quite smiling, not quite still. His hair was short and tousled, like someone who had never bothered to tame it, and his eyes… one glimmering gold, the other a soft, bruised violet — a mismatch that should’ve looked strange, but didn’t. Not on him.
“You really need to stop saying that in public,” I said flatly.
He raised his brows. “Why? I think it adds intrigue.”
“You think everything adds intrigue.”
“Only when you’re involved.”
He held up two parchment-wrapped pastries. “I bought one for myself and… accidentally acquired a second. Thought you might want it, in case you’re planning another ‘diplomatic ambush.’”
Kai stepped forward, sharp-eyed. “You’re the prince from the west.”
Sylas didn’t flinch. He offered a smooth bow, too elegant to be mocking. “Prince Sylas of Drakenvyre. Professional inconvenience. At your service.”
Cassian joined us, arms folded. “And what brings Drakenvyre’s heir into our city without guards or warning?”
Sylas’s expression didn’t shift. “I like people better when they don’t bow. And I’m not my father.”
That sentence hung in the air. A strange kind of silence. One that made me wonder how often he had to say it and how often no one believed him.
He turned to me again.
“But I am fond of fresh air. And companions who don’t try to strangle me in palace corridors.”
“That was your fault.”
“Oh, I know. I’m charming like that.”
We stayed longer than we planned.
Sylas won over a spiced nut vendor by pretending not to know the currency, convinced Bonnie to haggle over spiced nuts (she was terrible at it). He helped a vendor fix a crooked stall sign, even though I’m fairly certain he’d never held a hammer before in his life. He fed his extra pastry to a girl with a scraped knee, pretending he “dropped it by accident.”
He didn’t act like a prince. Not the kind I knew.
And that made me wonder what kind of boy he had to be when he wasn’t performing.
We sat at the fountain again, Sylas and I, away from the others.
He told me about a forest in Drakenvyre where white trees only bloomed once every ten years — a snow made of blossoms instead of frost.
“They say if you see it with someone you trust,” he said, “it stays with you.”
I didn’t say anything.
But I didn’t look away either.
As the sun dipped low — peach light softening everything into memory — he walked beside me back toward the horses.
“I won’t keep you,” he said, quiet now.
“You say that like you didn’t already.”
He smiled, but it wasn’t the cocky one. It was smaller. Truer.
“Thank you,” he said.
“For what?”
“For not being what I expected.”
I paused, unsure if I liked that — or if it scared me. “You don’t know me.”
“Not yet,” he said. “But I’d like to.”
And before I could reply, he added, “I hope I’ll see you again.”
I should’ve said something clever. Something cautious.
But what slipped out was simply, “You might.”
He looked satisfied with that. And maybe even a little relieved.
“Then I’ll wait.”
I didn’t return to my chambers right away.
After we came back from the city, there was supper, then court updates, then one of Mother’s subtle, sharp remarks about the importance of appearances. Cassian tried to steer the conversation elsewhere. Kai watched me more than he spoke. I managed a smile through most of it.
But now, alone, the halls hushed and the torches guttering low, I finally slipped through my door and shut it behind me.
The fire in the hearth had nearly gone out. My slippers were damp from the dew on the balcony stones. I kicked them off without grace.
That’s when I saw it.
A box — not large, not wrapped in ribbon or silk. Simple, smooth wood, like something handmade instead of bought.
Inside, nestled in midnight-colored velvet, was a pendant. Silver. Finely wrought. Shaped like the delicate outline of a tree in bloom — but not any tree I’d seen in Valara.
Its branches were long and slender, like reaching hands. The leaves shimmered translucent, almost glass, each etched so carefully I could have sworn they moved as I turned it in the light. I ran my thumb over the smooth edge of the pendant.
And tucked underneath it — almost hidden — was a single pressed flower.
White.
Unfamiliar.
A soft bloom I had never touched, and yet—
I knew it.
Somewhere deep in me, something shifted. Like the memory of a moment I hadn’t lived yet. A heartbeat waiting.
Beneath it, one folded slip of paper.
When spring returns to the Drakenvyre mountains, these trees bloom all at once. My mother once said they only bloom for those worth waiting for.
Thought you might like something that doesn’t wilt.
No name. No signature.
But I didn’t need one.
I placed it beside the old comb my mother gave me, the note from Kai folded into my mirror frame, and the teacup Cassian once brought back from a mission just because it was blue and reminded him of me.
I touched the pendant one more time, before heading to my bed to sleep.
I closed my eyes.
And the world shifted.
It didn’t feel like a dream, not at first.
I stood in a forest where the trees rose like pillars from some long-forgotten temple. Everything was white — not snow, not frost, but blossoms. Millions of them. Petals drifted through the air with the hush of falling ash, soft and silent, clinging to my sleeves like they knew me.
Light filtered down through the canopy, silver and slow. I could hear water somewhere — a stream, or maybe a river, just out of sight. The air smelled like spring and something older, like ancient magic that had been sleeping too long.
I took a step forward, and the petals didn’t crunch. They welcomed me.
The forest had no path. But my feet didn’t stumble.
I knew where I was going.
And then I saw him.
At the edge of a wide clearing, beneath a tree older than any castle wall, stood Sylas.
He wasn’t dressed like a prince. He wore a simple shirt, sleeves rolled to his forearms, boots scuffed and cloak forgotten. His silver hair glinted faintly, caught in the soft glow from above. He didn’t move at first. Just watched me. Like he’d been waiting.
Waiting a long time.
“You made it,” he said.
His voice was the same — warm, teasing — but quieter. Like he didn’t want to wake the trees.
I looked down.
The pendant he’d left me was around my neck.
His eyes were warm. Steady. Not demanding, not hopeful — just waiting.
And in that moment, I understood.
This was the place.
This was the thing he’d spoken of, without speaking.
A forest that only bloomed once every ten years. Meant to be seen with someone you trusted.
Said my name once, so softly I almost missed it.
“Kira.”
He lifted his hand and held it out toward me.
I didn’t hesitate.
I stepped forward.
And when our fingers brushed, the trees stirred — just once — and the petals began to fall in earnest.
Everything dissolved.
I woke up.
The room was dark. Still.
But my heart was racing.
My fingers were still outstretched, like they hadn’t let go of him yet. I sat up slowly in bed, blinking into the low amber glow from the hearth. I rubbed my palms together, then reached to press one against my chest. My skin felt too warm.
It was a dream, I told myself.
A dream. Just a dream.
But the moss had felt real beneath my feet. The hush of those white trees. The soft, strange weight of a gown I’d never worn. His voice had barely even spoken — and I still remembered how it felt in the air between us.
I pulled the blanket tighter around my shoulders and sat there for a long time, watching the last of the fire die.
Eventually, I lay back down.
But I didn’t sleep.
Not for a long, long time.