The sun bleeds its last colors across the mountains, staining the sky in soft orange and purple. The stone beneath my boots is still warm from the day. 

No guards here. 

No whispers. 

Just wind and silence. 

Kaelis is already there. He doesn’t speak when I arrive. He doesn’t need to. 

I sit beside him on the edge of the battlement, close enough to feel the heat of him, but not touching.

The stillness between us isn’t awkward — it’s earned. 

I tilt my head back and close my eyes. 

For a few breaths, I let the noise inside me settle. 

The words. 

The weight. 

The echo of Eiran’s voice. 

“Did it go badly?” Kaelis asks after a while. 

I huff a tired laugh. “He didn’t throw a glass at me, if that’s what you’re asking.” 

“High praise.” 

I look over at him, finding the faintest quirk at the corner of his mouth. 

“He knows I don’t trust him,” I say. “And he doesn’t care.” 

“He doesn’t need your trust. He just needs your compliance.” 

“Then he’ll be disappointed.” 

Kaelis nods slowly. “Good.” 

We fall silent again. 

Below us, the city is beginning to glow with torchlight. Small flickers in windows. Lanterns strung along merchant streets. A kingdom preparing for sleep. 

“He said I was soft,” I murmur. 

“You are,” Kaelis says, without hesitation. “Soft enough to see people as more than pawns. That’s not weakness.” 

I glance at him. “You think that’s enough to rule?” 

He meets my gaze. 

Steady. 

Unflinching. 

“I think it’s the only reason to.” 

My breath catches — not at the words, but at the way he says them. Like a truth he decided long ago. Like a vow he didn’t ask me to return. 

The wind rises around us. I don’t move away from him. 

“Do you ever wish we could just disappear?” I ask quietly. “Before this becomes something we can’t come back from?” 

“All the time,” Kaelis says. 

I smile, just a little. 

But neither of us moves. 

Because we won’t run. 

Not when there’s still so much left to protect.

The wind has grown colder by the time I return to my chambers. The fire has been lit in the hearth. Someone left food on a silver tray — warm bread, slices of peach, a cut of roasted lamb I’m too tired to eat. The wine pitcher sweats softly in the low light. 

I sit by the window instead. 

Arathen stretches beneath me, quiet and golden. 

The city never truly sleeps, but this is as close as it gets — soft lights in the distance, the sound of carts being drawn home, the low hush of the river carving its path through the valley. 

I press my hand to the glass. 

He’s playing a long game. 

That’s what I keep circling back to. 

Eiran’s words. 

His calm. 

The calculated way he didn’t defend himself. 

It wasn’t just manipulation. 

It was confidence. 

He knows something I don’t. 

And that thought scratches at the back of my skull like a secret just out of reach. 

I think of Kaelis’s words earlier — soft enough to see people as more than pawns — and I wonder if that’s the part of me he’ll try to use. 

Not my name. 

Not my title. 

But my mercy. 

Because it is mercy that holds me back. Even now. Even knowing what he is. Even knowing what he might cost. 

I close my eyes, forehead pressed to the cold windowpane. 

I’m tired of watching this kingdom from behind glass.

Kaelis is sharpening his sword. Not the ceremonial one, not the polished blade he wears for formality — but the one that’s seen real blood. The one he keeps in the deep chest at the foot of his bed, wrapped in oilskin and silence. He drags the whetstone along the edge in slow, even strokes. 

The sound is soft. 

Measured. 

Dangerous. 

He doesn’t look up when I knock, doesn’t look surprised when I step in. 

“You’re not dressed for court,” I say. 

“I’m not in the mood for ceremony.” 

I sit across from him, my hands resting on my knees, ankles tucked to the side in the only way I know. There’s something about the room — sparse, clean, filled only with what matters. It reminds me of him. 

“You feel it too,” I murmur. 

He nods. “Something’s shifting. The guards are too quiet. The advisors too agreeable.” He lifts the blade, checking its edge against the light. “When silence spreads like that,” he says, “it’s usually covering something.” 

I lean back, exhaling. “You think he’s moving against us?” 

“I think,” he says slowly, “we’re about to be handed the blame for something we didn’t do.” 

The whetstone stops. 

He looks at me then — eyes clear, unblinking. “You need to be ready.” 

I nod. “I am.” 

Even as I say it, I wonder if I am.

The prince’s solar is warm with wine and flickering candlelight. 

A room built for whispering. 

Eiran sits beside Lady Merien, a lesser noblewoman with more curiosity than political sense, sipping rosewater and talking just loudly enough to be overheard. 

“…well, I don’t think it’s shameful,” Eiran says, light and airy. “I simply think it’s interesting. The princess keeps him closer than her own blood.” 

Merien leans in. “The knight? Kaelis?” 

Eiran laughs, poised and practiced. “It’s not my place to say. I only wonder — if one were to place their trust so fully in a single man, would that be loyalty… or something else?” 

Merien’s eyes widen, delighted. “You don’t mean—?” 

“I mean nothing,” Eiran says sweetly, setting his cup down. “Except that proximity often breeds… attachment.” He smiles again. 

Thin. 

Razor-sharp. 

He never says the word. 

He never needs to. 

By morning, the whisper has begun. 

The princess and her knight. 

Too close. 

Too often alone. 

Too… intimate.