Time passed.

 

Aelira never saw Vaelen again—not for five long years.

 

Not a glance, not a word, not even the shadow of his robes passing the threshold. It was as though he had cast her into this gilded cage and then vanished, leaving her with nothing but absence.

 

The quarters themselves were elegant but cold—stone walls draped in silver-threaded banners, gardens she wasn’t allowed to enter, libraries filled with knowledge she wasn’t allowed to seek alone. None of it mattered. Her world had shrunk to a single corridor, a training hall, a chamber where she slept and woke.

 

And one presence.

 

Yuan.

 

At first, he had been little more than a figure made of silence and steel. He spoke like stone, moved like shadow, never wavering, never softening. But over time, she came to memorize him in ways she hadn’t expected. The measured rhythm of his footsteps. The way his hand always lingered near the hilt of his blade. The quiet stillness that clung to him like the weight of an unmoving mountain.

 

He trained her relentlessly.

 

Magic in the morning. Combat in the afternoon. Breathing and meditation at dusk.

 

Her small body, frail at first, grew into agility and precision. The earth itself seemed to respond to her—balancing her steps, letting her anticipate an opponent’s strike. She learned to feel vibrations through the ground, to root her stance like stone. Where she lacked brute force, she found focus. And Yuan never treated her like a child. His blade struck without hesitation, his blocks unforgiving, his lessons sharp as steel.

 

“You’re quick,” he said once, when she narrowly dodged and nearly swept his legs.

 

“I’m small,” she answered, panting.

 

“You’re lethal,” he corrected, his pale eyes fixed on her. “You just don’t realize it yet.”

 

The words should have frightened her. But instead, she smiled faintly. Somehow, she liked when he didn’t lie.

 

He never praised, never patted her head, never softened his voice. Yet he was there. Always there.

 

When nightmares tore her awake, he sat silently outside her door until she fell back asleep.

When her magic flared uncontrollably, he stood in the threshold, waiting until she wrestled it down on her own.

When she wept quietly in a corner—dreaming of Kaeyla, of a home she could never see again—he never spoke. But the next morning, her training would ease, or a new book about stars would be left beside her plate.

 

He would never admit it. But she knew.

 

Seasons shifted. Yuan grew taller, shoulders broadening, his face sharpening into the austerity of a young man. His silver hair darkened faintly at the roots, his scarred hands always steady. He was still quiet, still composed—but he was no longer the boy she had first met.

 

And to her, he became everything.

 

A sentinel.

A shadow.

A sky so still she could rest beneath it.

 

But she never forgot what he had said the first day:

 

“To kill you, if I must.”

 

She tried not to think of it. But some nights, watching his silhouette framed in lamplight outside her door, she wondered—if that moment ever came, would he hesitate? Or would he do as ordered?

 

⸻

 

Tap.

 

A sharp smack against her shoulder jolted her out of her thoughts. She turned to see Yuan standing before her, wooden blade in hand, expression unreadable.

 

“You’re drifting again,” he said flatly. “Training’s not over.”

 

She stared at him, her voice quiet. “Yuan… would you really kill me one day?”

 

For the briefest instant, his hand twitched on the hilt. A pause. Silence. Then his eyes—pale as winter—met hers.

 

“If you become the monster you once were,” he said at last, “yes.”

 

Her lips curved in a small, fragile smile. “Good. I want it to be you.”

 

The words hit harder than he expected. His shoulders stiffened. He looked away. He should have said nothing, should have let the silence end it. Instead, after a long breath, he stepped forward. Slowly, deliberately, his hand reached out and rested on her hair. A single pat. Awkward. Hesitant. But real.

 

“You’re doing well,” he murmured. “You’ll be alright. I’ll stop you before you ever become something you can’t live with.”

 

Aelira froze. Then her small hands rose, holding his against her head just long enough to prove he was real. Her chest tightened—not with fear this time, but something gentler.

 

“But even if I live,” she whispered, “does it matter? I’m a prisoner here. Vaelen will never let me leave.”

 

Yuan said nothing at first. He only lowered himself to sit beside her, his gaze fixed on the pale stones beneath their feet.

 

“It’s too early to say that.”

 

From his coat, he pulled a folded parchment and handed it to her.

 

“I found this during my last mission,” he said. “Not a weapon. Not a curse. A spell your mother used—Queen Elowen. She cast it to grow her favorite flowers.”

 

Her breath caught. She unfolded the paper, tracing the runes with her fingers. The shapes hummed faintly against her skin, familiar in a way that stirred her blood.

 

“Really?” she whispered.

 

His mouth twitched—almost a smile. He turned his eyes away. “Try it. I’ll watch.”

 

Aelira stepped into the center of the sparring yard. The ground was hard-packed, scarred from months of sparring blows, barren of life. She hesitated—breathing in slowly, as if afraid the silence would shatter.

 

Closing her eyes, she whispered the incantation written on the parchment.

 

The first tendrils of power trickled from her palm—gentle, uncertain. Not the wild storm that had once destroyed a hall, but something quieter. Softer. She guided it down into the stone, into the cracks beneath her feet.

 

The earth stirred.

 

A green shoot pressed through the dirt. Then another.

 

Aelira’s eyes flew open just in time to see vines curling upward like ribbons unfurling from the ground. Tiny blossoms swelled and opened—petals of soft pink and pale white, trembling in the faint air. They spilled over the cracked stones, spread along the railings, climbed toward the sky.

 

The air changed.

 

A sweetness filled it—the faint perfume of wild blooms in spring. Aelira drew a breath and stilled. For the first time in years, she smelled something that didn’t belong to stone, or dust, or sweat. Something warm. Something alive.

 

Her chest ached.

 

It was like… an embrace. The embrace of someone whose face she couldn’t see, but whose arms she somehow remembered. The faint brush of silk, the scent of blossoms in her hair, the warmth of lips pressed to her temple.

 

Mother.

 

The word rose unbidden, though she couldn’t picture her face. She couldn’t recall the shape of her smile. And yet, here in the flowers, in their scent and color and fragile persistence, she felt her mother’s presence all around her.

 

Tears blurred her eyes. She laughed, but it was a broken sound, threaded with both joy and grief.

 

She spun in the center of the bloom, her small hands reaching to touch the flowers as they opened—each one soft, trembling, luminous in the fading light. For a moment, the cold yard became a garden, one she half-remembered but could never fully name.

 

Her throat tightened. “Mama…”

 

The word escaped in a whisper she hadn’t meant to say.

 

Behind her, Yuan stood still, his pale eyes following the transformation with something he rarely allowed to surface—wonder.

 

Aelira turned, cheeks wet, but her smile radiant. And before she thought better of it, she darted forward and threw her arms around him, clinging as if he had delivered her a piece of the world she’d lost.

 

“Thank you, Yuan!” Her voice shook with laughter and tears. “It’s beautiful. She… she loved flowers, didn’t she? I can feel it… I can almost remember.”

 

Yuan froze, caught between her warmth and the weight of her words. Slowly, his arms lifted, awkward but steady, resting around her shoulders.

 

“…You’re welcome,” he murmured, voice quiet, almost breaking.

 

And for the first time in years, the prison walls did not feel like stone. They felt like a garden.