It had become their routine—these soft-stitched moments strung between duties and expectations, like threads slowly weaving something neither of them dared name.
The morning after the performance, Caelum woke not with the dread of uncertainty, but with a warm fullness in his chest. Elowen's laughter from the night before echoed in his mind like the notes of a melody that refused to fade. He lay in bed a moment longer, eyes fixed on the ceiling of the chamber he still struggled to call "his," as if clinging to the sensation of her hand in his, her light steps beside him, the way she'd looked at him under the moonlight—unguarded.
He finally stirred when a knock came, gentle. Meryl, one of the kinder maids, entered with tea and fresh bread.
"The Lady is already in the garden," she said with a knowing smile, glancing toward the window.
Caelum blinked. "The garden?"
"She's been there every morning since you two started going. Something's changed."
He looked out toward the glass, the dew-speckled lawn, and the crooked path that led into wild roses and wandering ivy. Something had changed. And he was starting to believe—no, hope—that maybe it was both of them.
—
He found her at the center of the maze, curled on the edge of the old marble fountain with a book on her knees and sunlight braided through her silver hair. She didn't look up right away, but her posture relaxed the moment he stepped into the clearing.
"I had a feeling you'd come," she said.
"Am I that predictable already?" Caelum asked, smiling as he sat beside her.
"Not predictable," Elowen said softly, brushing her fingers across the fountain's rim. "Just… dependable."
That word hung in the air between them. Dependable. Caelum had never been called that before—not in the real world, not in the novel. He swallowed the warmth it brought and looked down at the book she held.
"The Compendium of Alchemical Flora?" he said, recognizing the aged title.
Elowen glanced down. "I wanted to learn why the vines in this garden haven't bloomed for years. Then they did, after you arrived."
Caelum blinked. "Wait. They did?"
She nodded and motioned toward a patch of starflowers on the wall. "Those were withered. I thought it was a trick of the light when they glowed after you touched one."
Caelum leaned closer. He remembered brushing his hand against a leaf while laughing at one of her jokes—something barely worth noting at the time.
"Maybe it was you," he said.
She tilted her head. "You don't think it's strange?"
"Everything about this world is strange," he replied. "But you… you make it feel like magic is supposed to be this soft."
Her lips parted slightly, eyes flickering with emotion, but she looked away before speaking.
"Back then… in the novel, before you died, we didn't have time to grow into this."
Caelum stiffened. It was the first time she'd directly referenced the inevitable—his death in the original story.
He reached forward, gently brushing a strand of hair behind her ear.
"Well, we have time now," he said. "Let's not waste it."
The way she looked at him then was nothing short of breathtaking—like she was seeing a star that only rose for her.
—
Later that afternoon, they snuck away again—this time to the old library nestled in the western wing, mostly forgotten except by dust and the occasional owl. Elowen had brought candied fruit, and Caelum had tucked the notebook into his coat, though it remained unopened. He didn't want magic or systems or fates between them today.
They settled by the stained-glass window, where the light spilled in like ribbons across their legs.
"Read to me," she said suddenly, lying back on a velvet chaise.
Caelum blinked. "You want me to read?"
She nodded, fingers folding beneath her chin. "Your voice makes stories sound real."
So he read. First from a tale about a fox and a moon-child, then a poem about falling stars. As he read, her eyes never left his face. When she finally drifted off to sleep with her head against his shoulder, he closed the book, unable to stop his smile.
In that moment, nothing mattered but her breathing and the softness of her weight against him.
—
By the time the sun dipped below the horizon, Elowen stirred, blinking slowly.
"I fell asleep again," she murmured.
"You needed it."
"I dreamed…" she trailed off, then looked up at him. "You were in it. We were running through a forest, laughing. I was barefoot."
Caelum chuckled. "Was I carrying your shoes?"
She smiled lazily. "No. You were barefoot too."
Silence lingered before she added, "It felt like freedom."
He held her gaze. "Then let's find more of those moments. Even in small ways."
And as she leaned in, pressing a kiss just above his heart—so soft it felt like the world paused around it—Caelum finally understood something:
In the original novel, she became the villainess because she had no one who chose her softness over her strength. No one who saw her as something worth loving.
But here, now… he could.
And that was how fate began to bend.