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Chapter 7: “The Crown and the Ghost”

Yume and Auren

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The next time they met, it wasn’t arranged.

Yume had been walking the palace corridors alone after midnight, sleepless again. The moon lit the floor like silver glass.

And there he was—Auren, sitting at the edge of the fountain in the inner courtyard, robes half-loosened, crown tucked at his side like he no longer cared to wear it.

> “Can’t sleep either?” she asked softly.

He didn’t look surprised to see her.

Almost as if he’d been waiting.

> “Dreams make too much noise,” he said. “Yours?”

She sat beside him. “Memories.”

> “His?”

“Always.”

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Auren chuckled, not cruelly, but quietly. “I wonder what he would say, seeing you here… beside the throne he never wanted.”

Yume’s voice barely rose. “He’d say I’ve betrayed him.”

Auren turned to her. “Have you?”

She looked away.

> “I don’t know.”

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There was a long pause. Only the gentle trickle of the fountain between them.

Then Auren spoke again, slower this time.

> “I’m not asking you to forget him.”

He reached out again, gently tucking a stray hair behind her ear.

> “I just want to be someone you don’t have to forget yourself around.”

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Yume didn’t move.

She didn’t lean closer.

She didn’t lean away.

Because what do you do when you’re offered comfort that isn’t love, but still feels like warmth?

What do you do when the person you love has vanished into silence, and the one in front of you is kind, gentle, patient… but not him?

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> “You’re kind,” she whispered. “But I’m still holding a ghost.”

> “Then let me stay,” he said. “Even if I’m just the hand you hold while it haunts you.”

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Yume closed her eyes.

Not because she didn’t know what to say.

But because she did.

> “I’m tired of being alone.”

Auren said nothing.

Just sat with her, in silence.

And that night—for the first time in years—Yume allowed her head to rest on someone’s shoulder.

Even if it wasn’t the one she longed for.

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