────୨ৎ────
The King stood alone now.
My footsteps had long faded from the corridor, but my presence still lingered like frost.
He stared into the dying fire, one hand resting on the carved mantel, the other clenched tightly at his side.
He was losing me — not to scandal, or scandalous love, but to something worse:
A silent kind of grief.
And then—
A knock.
Sharp.
Urgent.
"Enter," he barked.
A soldier stepped in, boots dirtied from a long ride, armor stained with road dust and sweat.
His face was pale, and his fingers trembled slightly as he held out a sealed scroll, pressed with a silver insignia from the Eastern High Command.
"Sire. Message from the capital outpost. Priority one."
The King snatched it and broke the seal without hesitation.
His eyes scanned the parchment.
Lieutenant Rowen Caelum. Alive. Cleared of all former accusations. Recovered. Decorated with honors. Officially discharged.
He has requested re-entry into the kingdom… and is on his way home.
Time stopped.
The King didn't breathe. He read the message again. Then again.
Rowen.
The boy who once ran these palace halls barefoot beside me.
The boy with fire in his eyes and loyalty in his bones.
The boy I had loved — and lost — in silence.
The King lowered the scroll slowly, hands trembling just once.
"Does anyone else know of this?" he asked, voice low.
The soldier shook his head.
"No, Your Majesty. The message was marked for your eyes only."
He nodded slowly, lips tightening.
He should tell me. He should let me prepare my heart.
But...
He could already imagine it — the shift in my eyes, the way my coldness would melt into hope, into fire, into something he had not seen in me for years.
He could also imagine what it would do to Rye — the man whose ambition was locked around me like a cage made of roses.
And to the court, which had accepted our future union as fact.
"Say nothing," the King said finally, eyes still on the flames.
"Sire?"
"Not a word to anyone. Not even the Queen."
The soldier hesitated.
"But Princess Evelynne…"
The King cut him off with steel in his voice. "Especially not her."
The room fell still again.
The King sat heavily at his desk and looked down at the parchment once more.
Rowen was coming home.
But not as a boy.
Not as my friend.
Not even as a soldier.
He was returning as the man who might be strong enough to take everything back.
And the King wasn't sure if that would save me…
…or destroy me.