Morning came cloaked in a strange stillness.

I rose before dawn, unable to sleep. The maids who entered an hour later looked startled to find me already awake, as though a forgotten princess had no right to be alert, prepared. They bowed quickly, recovering their composure, and their eyes darted away.

“What would Your Majesty like for breakfast?” the head maid asked, her voice careful, almost brittle.

“Something nourishing,” I said quietly. “Something to last me until dinner.”

She blinked at me, as if she had expected some girlish demand for sweets, not this resigned practicality. But she only bowed and left.

When the food came, I ate slowly, deliberately. My hands trembled only once, when I set down the cup of tea.

The rest of the day blurred into rituals. My body was scrubbed and perfumed. My hair was brushed until it gleamed like silk. My skin was powdered and painted. The maids worked with mechanical precision, but I could feel their unease. None of them looked me in the eye for long.

By afternoon, the priest arrived, carrying the marriage contract already signed by Emperor Lev. His hand, his mark, his name inked on parchment—proof that this fate was sealed.

I traced the signature lightly with my fingertip, my throat tightening. I had imagined what it might feel like to see his name beside mine, but it felt nothing like I had hoped. There was no warmth in the ink. Only inevitability.

I took the pen, steadying my hand. My vows left my lips, hollow and soft, and when the parchment was signed, the priest smiled, congratulated me, and placed a velvet box in my hand.

Inside lay the ring that would never truly belong to me.

“Your veil,” the priest said.

I removed it slowly, surrendering the gossamer fabric into his hands. “It will be delivered to His Majesty in exchange for your ring,” he explained, his voice warm with symbolism. “A wife gives her veil only once. It means her body, her heart, her soul belong to him alone.”

I wanted to laugh. To ask what it meant, then, that my husband had already found another. But laughter would break me, and I had no pieces left to spare.

The ring glittered in the dim light. A beautiful thing. A cruel thing.

The head maid coughed softly. “Your Majesty should not wear it yet,” she said gently. “It must be placed on your finger by the Emperor himself.”

I closed the box and handed it back to her without a word.

Evening fell. The maids dressed me in a gown that shimmered like starlight, their fingers trembling as they fastened the clasps. They whispered among themselves when they thought I couldn’t hear—wondering why there was no feast, no grand ceremony, no audience. Only silence.

When I refused to go down to the hall, they gasped. A bride refusing her own celebration? But I only smiled faintly. Why should I attend a banquet for a groom who would not come?

So they left me.

And I waited.

The chamber was vast, furnished with silks and carved wood, lit by the pale silver glow of moonlight spilling through the balcony doors. I sat on the edge of the bed, my hands folded in my lap, my heart racing and slowing and racing again.

I told myself he would come. I told myself not to believe the dream.

But when the first howl split the night, my breath caught in my throat.

It came from far beyond the walls of the palace, but it was so loud it made the glass panes shiver. Then another joined it. And another. Until the city itself seemed to tremble with the chorus of werewolves celebrating under the moon.

The King had found his mate.

Their joy shook the capital.

And I, his bride, sat alone in his chambers.

The guards outside the door cheered openly. I heard one laugh, his voice carrying through the wood: “The King has found his Luna. His true Queen!”

Another voice, sharper with excitement, added, “Perhaps he will end this farce tomorrow. Cast aside the princess and bring his mate to his side where she belongs.”

Their words stabbed, but worse than pain was the numbness that spread through me.

The King was not coming.

He was not coming now. He would not come tomorrow.

The ring in its box mocked me from the bedside table. My vows mocked me from the parchment already sealed. My gown, my painted lips, my perfumed skin—all mocked me.

I curled forward, pressing my forehead against my knees, fighting for breath. My chest felt hollow, as if something vital had been scooped out and replaced with emptiness.

I had loved him. Without ever knowing him, without ever speaking his name aloud, I had loved him with every broken, desperate piece of myself.

And he had not even spared me a glance.

The night stretched long. The howls continued until the city shook with revelry. Music rose faintly in the distance, humans and werewolves alike joining in the celebration of their King’s discovery.

I lay down on the bed, pulling the blankets over my shoulders. His scent lingered in the sheets, faint but real, wrapping around me like a cruel comfort. I pressed my face into it, tears slipping silently down my cheeks.

Sleep came slowly, dragging me into the darkness.

Not the dream of death this time.

Not even a dream at all.

Just silence. And loneliness.

On the night I became his wife, I was already forgotten.