The morning Luca left, Elara watched from her window as the village stirred below. She knew he would already be gone—he had always risen before the sun—but the ache in her chest refused reason. Distance, she was learning, did not bring relief. It only sharpened the shape of absence.
Wedding preparations advanced with relentless precision. Seamstresses measured her waist, jewelers adjusted necklaces heavy enough to bruise her collarbone. Every fitting felt like another layer of armor she did not want.
Julien visited often. He was never cruel, which somehow made everything worse.
"You will grow accustomed to this life," he told her once as they walked the gardens. "Comfort has a way of softening disappointment."
Elara smiled politely. Inside, something hardened.
At night, she dreamt of Luca in the city—bloodied hands, hollow eyes—and woke with a cry she learned to silence.
---
The city was not kind to Luca.
Work at the docks tore skin and spirit alike. The foreman paid late, shouted often, and cared little for injuries. Luca learned quickly that strength alone was not enough—luck mattered more.
Yet even as exhaustion weighed him down, thoughts of Elara refused to fade. He kept the ribbon tucked inside his shirt, close to his heart. Some nights, he unfolded it carefully, as if it might dissolve if handled too roughly.
"She was never yours," a fellow worker sneered once.
Luca said nothing. Silence was safer.
---
Back at the estate, Elara received a letter—unsigned, delivered discreetly.
The wedding will be watched closely.
She burned it without a word.
Her mother noticed the change in her. "You've grown quiet," she said.
"I'm learning," Elara replied. "That is what you wanted, isn't it?"
Lady Montclair looked away.
---
Two weeks before the wedding, disaster struck.
A shipment failed to arrive. Workers in the northern fields went unpaid. Hunger whispered through the village.
Elara overheard her father dismiss the matter at dinner. "They will endure. They always do."
Something inside her snapped.
That night, she wrote letters—dozens of them—ordering aid, promising payment from her personal accounts. She signed her name without hesitation.
By morning, her father knew.
"You have embarrassed this family," he thundered. "You act as if peasants are equals!"
"They are human," Elara replied, shaking but unyielding.
The punishment was swift.
She was forbidden from leaving her chambers.
---
In the city, Luca was injured when a crate collapsed. His leg twisted unnaturally beneath him. The foreman replaced him before he could even stand.
Days passed. Money ran out.
One night, as rain seeped through broken windows, Luca collapsed onto his cot, feverish and weak. He thought of Elara's voice, her stubborn courage, and wondered if loving her had doomed them both.
---
Back in her room, Elara felt the walls closing in. She pressed her forehead to the glass, staring toward the horizon she could no longer reach.
"I choose him," she whispered into the night. "Even if the world doesn't."
And for the first time, she began to plan not how to survive—but how to escape.