Aelira crouched in her usual place—high in the palace trees, hidden among the thick branches that overlooked the queen’s garden. The golden hour stretched across the kingdom, washing the palace in a soft warmth.

Down below, Queen Kaeyla walked along the garden paths, her red hair catching the wind, her laughter trailing behind her like birdsong. Aelira never grew tired of this sight. For fifteen years she had kept to this tree, her eyes fixed on the same figure, her sister’s radiant life a tether to her own.

Then—

“Do you know how to smile?”

The voice came from behind her.

Her body reacted before thought. A blade of sharpened vine unfurled in her hand, magic surging at her fingertips. And yet—what unsettled her most wasn’t the words, but the fact that she hadn’t sensed him. Not a stir of air, not a vibration in the ground. For someone trained to kill at the faintest tremor, it was an unforgivable mistake.

From the leaves, a figure emerged.

Broad-shouldered, sun-dark skin, eyes molten gold. His crimson hair, tied loosely at the nape, burned like Kaeyla’s but wilder, unruly. He looked like a warrior disguised in careless ease—yet he carried himself with none of the discipline of soldiers. His posture was lazy, almost insolent. A fan dangled in one hand; its lacquered wood etched with wards. A royal weapon, rare and unmistakable.

He grinned at her, settling onto the branch as though it belonged to him, legs swinging freely into the air. The last light of the sun gilded half his face, the other half lost to shadow, his golden eyes glinting as they fixed directly on her.

“Don’t kill me. I just like this tree.”

Her voice was flat, a blade’s edge. “Who are you?”

“Theon,” he said brightly. “Nobody special. Just a guest of the kingdom for the past two months.”

Her grip on her weapon tightened. “Guests don’t wander into the queen’s private gardens.”

“Mm, true,” he mused, fanning himself lazily. “But I’m not just any guest. The emperor’s illegitimate son—one of the ones they hide, but don’t kill. And apparently also,” his grin widened, “a candidate for king consort.”

That made her falter.

He noticed. Of course he noticed.

“Relax,” he said. “I’ve no interest in courtly politics or arranged marriages. I’m just here because for once, I can sleep without one eye open.”

She said nothing, still assessing.

“And you?” he tilted his head, the fan gesturing toward her in mock curiosity. “Shadow guard? Phantom? You’ve been in this tree nearly every sunset. I thought eventually you’d notice me.”

Her stomach dropped. Two months. And she hadn’t seen him once. That made him not only dangerous, perhaps her natural enemy.

As though sensing her thoughts, he added lightly, “Don’t bother. No one notices me unless I let them. It’s how I’m still alive.”

There was a pause, then his grin softened into something less teasing, almost thoughtful. “You looked lonely. Though maybe we could be friends. You remind me of a cat. All thorns and elegance. Beautiful, but always out of reach.”

Aelira froze at the word. She had not been called beautiful in years. Not by anyone but the ghosts of memory.

Instinct took over. She vanished in a blink of shadow, leaving nothing but the sway of branches behind.

Theon blinked, then laughed softly at himself, leaning back until the branch creaked beneath him. “A cat,” he murmured, amused. “I was getting bored. Might as well adopt a one.”

After their first encounter, Aelira kept her distance.

Or tried to.

But Theon… did not seem to understand the meaning of distance.

Every evening, when she slipped into her perch among the high branches, she hoped—foolishly—that he wouldn’t be there. And every evening, he was.

Waiting. Lounging. Whistling. Sometimes reciting old scrolls in accents so terrible they made her fingers twitch toward her blade. Other times, he simply stared at the sky, as if the clouds would offer him secrets no one else could read.

“You again,” Aelira muttered on the fourth evening, her patience frayed.

“Me again,” he said cheerfully, tossing a ripe plum toward her. She caught it by reflex, more annoyed by the fact that he had assumed she would. “You know, one day you’ll stop wanting to kill me on sight. That’ll be progress.”

“I haven’t tried. Yet.”

“Charming,” he grinned. “We’re bonding already.”

Her lips twitched before she could stop them. The betrayal of it made her snap her gaze away.

He talked enough for the both, spilling words like pebbles across a still pond—court gossip, tales of palace servants, wild stories from his supposed travels. Most were absurd. Some she suspected were true. She rarely replied, yet somehow… she stayed.

Something about him was warm. Chaotic, yes. Irritating, endlessly. But familiar in a way she couldn’t name. If Yuan had been a blade pressed quietly into her hand, Theon was fire poked against her cold skin—jarring, unasked for, but undeniably alive.

And he noticed everything.

“You always watch her from afar,” he said one evening, softer than usual.

Aelira stiffened, though her eyes never left Kaeyla walking in the garden below, red hair bright in the lamplight.

“Why not speak to her?”

Silence stretched. She would not answer.

“She looks like you,” Theon added, tilting his head. “That same stubborn jaw. That same kind of fire.” A pause, then quieter: “But you—you’re the shadow. She’s the sun.”

Her hand tightened on the bark until it splintered beneath her nails.

Theon let the silence stand after that. But the words lingered, clinging like ash.

“Do you know why I like this tree?” Theon asked suddenly.

The question cut through the silence, unexpected. Aelira turned, wary. He sat casually on the branch below, legs dangling, fan lazily balanced against his shoulder. But his eyes—those strange golden eyes—were fixed not on her, but on the horizon.

He lifted the fan, pointing outward. “Look.”

Against the thinning day, the sky had erupted into fire. Strokes of orange bled into pink, fading into violet at the edges. Clouds stretched like brushstrokes across the canvas, and high above, a flock of birds traced their slow migration, wings catching the dying light. The garden below, where Aelira’s gaze had always been chained, looked dim in comparison—small, almost muted beneath the glory of the sky.

“It’s magnificent, isn’t it?” Theon’s voice softened. “Every evening, it changes, but it’s always beautiful. Makes you remember the world is bigger than crowns and courtyards.”

He tilted his head toward her. “Tell me, Aelira—have you ever raised your eyes to see it? Or have you only ever looked down?”

Her breath caught.

Because it was true. She had never looked. Not once over the past years. Her eyes had always followed Kaeyla, step after step, never straying from the sister she was forged to protect. Her world had narrowed to the path beneath her sister’s feet. And now, seeing the sky blazing alive above her—she realized how small her existence had become.

Something inside her cracked.

Her lips did not move, her face did not falter, but tears slid silently down her cheeks, unbidden. Not of joy. Not of wonder. But of an emptiness so vast she didn’t know how to contain it.

Theon’s smile faded.

He hadn’t expected this. He thought she might scoff, or ignore him, or—if he was lucky—allow herself a moment of awe. But watching her cry, expression blank and silent, was unbearable. A girl who had never lifted her eyes from the ground, and when she finally did, she broke.

For the first time, he regretted speaking.

He reached up, almost without thinking, and brushed away her tears with his thumb. His voice was low. “I thought… maybe you’d smile. Looks like I was wrong.”

He pushed off the branch before she could answer, landing lightly on the ground. He didn’t look back.

Because he regrets showing her what freedom looks like. Because hope is cruel.

Sometimes, showing someone, the sky didn’t free them. It only reminded them of the cage they had built inside.