Prince Josh and the Empath Assassin, Relia Amia, walked away silently from the guest lodge, the quiet between them weighted with everything left unsaid.
Up above, Naze watched from the shadows — as he always did — fighting the whispers clawing through his mind, trying to keep his sanity from splintering again.
When they reached the stone path behind the courtyard, Josh reached out and took Relia Amia's hand.
She froze, stunned into silence.
He led her farther, until they stood in a place where no eyes — royal or common — could pry.
And there, Relia finally snapped.
"Prince Josh—"
Her voice cracked before the name even finished leaving her lips.
Josh didn't need to see her face to know what was coming.
He felt the headache tighten behind his eyes the moment she ripped her hand from his — sharp, decisive, trembling.
Her emotions slammed into him like a gale: fear, frustration, longing, guilt… and something she refused to name.
She lifted her chin, but her lower lip quivered despite her best efforts.
"First of all," she began, her breath already uneven, "I'm old enough to be your aunt — and whether you like it or not, I am your aunt."
Her eyebrows knit together, the way they did when she was holding herself together by pure will.
"You can't treat me like your girlfriend," she snapped, though her voice softened at the end without her permission. "You're too young for that!"
She tried to fold her arms but her hands wouldn't obey — they shook too much. So she clenched them into fists at her sides instead, nails digging into her palms.
"Second," she said, exhaling sharply, "you can't just barge into my room."
She pointed at him, though her finger wavered.
"Yes, you're the prince, fine—"
Her jaw tightened.
"—but you still need to learn manners."
Josh watched every twitch of her face.
Every tremble.
Every tear fighting to escape.
She swallowed hard — too hard — and her voice cracked on the next words.
"And thirdly…"
Her lashes dropped, hiding the swirl of emotions in her eyes.
"I hate the way you talk to me."
Her voice softened into something painfully honest.
"I hate that it makes my heart beat irregularly."
She pressed a hand to her chest as if she could force her heartbeat back into a normal rhythm.
"What do you expect from me?" she whispered, shaking her head. "You're five years old, Josh."
She let out a small, broken laugh — the kind that wasn't laughter at all.
"I'm thirty."
A tear slipped down her cheek.
"This could never work — even if you shaved ten years off my age."
She tried to wipe her tears discreetly, but more came, streaking down faster than she could hide them.
"I loved your father," she breathed, her voice trembling so much she had to bite her bottom lip to steady it. "I loved him… but I had to give that up for your mother."
Her eyes were glossy, far away for a moment, remembering a past she had locked inside her heart.
"Because he chose her," she whispered, the words trembling with old wounds. "Because she was the one he wanted. And I—"
She inhaled sharply, her shoulders shaking.
"I promised myself I would never love again. That's how much he meant to me."
Her breath shuddered out of her, uneven and raw.
"And now you…"
She looked at him, eyes filled with fear and longing mixed into a single impossible emotion.
"…you've awakened feelings I thought I buried. Feelings I thought I killed."
Josh didn't blink.
He simply watched her — studied her — with the eyes of someone far older than five years.
Then he smiled.
Slow.
Unhurried.
Confident in a way no child should be.
He stepped toward her.
She instinctively stepped back, but he reached out with sharp quick reflexes unfitting for his age, and slid a hand to the small of her back — gentle, steady — his touch sending a ripple up her spine.
Her breath hitched.
With his other hand, he guided her downward, not forcefully, but with a tender certainty she couldn't resist.
Her knees touched the ground.
Her eyes widened, breath halting at the intimacy of the gesture, the forbidden closeness, the impossible dominance of a five-year-old boy who moved like a grown emperor.
Her mind shattered into white noise.
A prince shouldn't touch his aunt like this.
A grown general shouldn't melt like this.
And a five-year-old shouldn't know how to do any of this.
Yet here he was.
And here she knelt.
Completely undone.
Josh leaned in slowly — not with the innocence of a child, but with the sureness of a man who knew exactly what effect he had on her.
He lifted his hand.
Relia didn't breathe.
When his thumb touched the soft trail of tears on her cheek, her entire body jolted. A tremor rippled down her spine so violently she had to dig her nails into her thighs to stay grounded.
His touch was warm. Unhurried. Claiming.
"Relia…" he murmured, his breath brushing her skin like a forbidden caress. His face was so close she could feel the warmth of him settle against her trembling heart.
"In case you don't know…"
His thumb brushed another tear away, slower this time.
"I have chosen you."
By
Her breath hitched — sharply, audibly.
"And I will have no other girl but you."
His voice didn't rise or fall.
It didn't tremble.
It was calm — too calm — the kind of calm that had once made entire war councils fall silent when spoken by his father.
"In this life," he continued, leaning a fraction closer, "and in any other that exists."
Her lips parted in disbelief, a small, helpless sound escaping her throat.
"If I ever take another woman…" His gaze dipped to her mouth before returning to her eyes.
"It will only be because you gave the blessing."
Relia's heartbeat stuttered. She felt it misfire painfully, like it didn't know how to beat anymore.
She stared up at him — wide-eyed, vulnerable, undone — suddenly feeling sixteen again, back when she first fell in love with a man she thought she could never have.
She hadn't felt that version of herself in years.
And now she was kneeling, shaking, before that same presence — reborn in the form of this impossible boy.
Josh brushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear with breathtaking tenderness.
"As for age," he said, the corner of his mouth lifting in that infuriatingly confident half-smile, "that is the least of our worries."
His fingers trailed lightly behind her ear — barely a touch — but enough to make her chest tighten painfully.
"There is a potion," he whispered, "that can return a woman to twenty."
Her breath froze.
He could practically hear her heart trip over itself.
"I possess it," he added, his thumb now tracing the curve of her cheek.
"And I am saving it… for the day I place it in your hand."
Her vision blurred for a second.
Was she crying?
Dizzy?
Both?
Josh leaned in until his forehead almost brushed hers.
"The real question is simple, Relia."
His voice softened into something unbearably intimate.
"Do you love me?"
A pause — heavy, suffocating, electric.
"Do you want me?"
She closed her eyes, agony and desire mixing in her chest.
"If your answer is no," Josh breathed, "I will step back. I will stop bothering you."
His thumb rested just below her bottom lip, barely touching, sending a violent wave of heat through her.
"I may be the prince," he whispered, "but I respect you."
Then — slowly, deliberately — he cupped her cheek with both hands, tilting her face up toward his.
"But I act this way because…"
His eyes locked onto hers, unblinking.
"I see you as my woman."
Her entire body froze.
Her breath failed.
Her mind splintered open under the weight of the words.
They didn't sound like a confession.
They sounded like a decree.
And they echoed through her chest like a spell repeating itself:
I see you as my woman…
I see you as my woman…
I see you as my woman…
Her heart hammered so violently she almost pitched forward.
She swayed.
Her fingers dug into the ground to keep herself conscious.
Heat flooded her cheeks, her neck, her entire body in a dizzying rush she couldn't control.
She couldn't breathe.
She couldn't think.
She couldn't even blink.
Josh had undone every wall she built.
Every vow she made.
Every emotion she buried.
She was General Relia Amia — the Empath Assassin — feared across continents…
…but one sentence from him had reduced her to a breathless, trembling woman on her knees, drowning in feelings she could no longer fight.