Ambrose shook his head. "No. It is a boundary. Sharing a bed with a man you do not trust makes you uneasy, doesn't it? While you continue to turn your back on me, I cannot entrust my back to you."

I swallowed hard. The spot  where my heart rested ached getting all unrestless as if it had been scorched from the inside out.

"I am just... trying to gather my thoughts," I muttered. "Is it so hard for you to understand me?"

"And I am tired of trying to understand you," he replied. And he said it with a voice devoid of shouting or fury—carrying only the heavy exhaustion of surrender. "How many times have I told you I do not want a second wife, Deyanira? I am not looking at anyone else; I have made promises to no one. Yet every time, you look me in the eye and say, 'You are lying.' I am keeping silent now, because you do not believe a single word I say."

"Because I am only just beginning get to know you!" I lashed out, my voice as loud as his for the very first time. "Your emotions are locked in a cage. Neither can I enter it, nor do you step out. You do such unbelievable things, things no one in this world would do. Especially for me..." I said this in a biting tone, but I knew by now that I waged even my own defenses strictly within myself. So much injustice was being done, yet I silently consumed myself every time, believing I had no right to object! Just as I was doing now.

His brows furrowed. For the last time, he looked at me entirely. That gaze was the summation of everything. It was like a blade—but this time, it was held not to cut, but to strike the final period.

"My emotions may be in a cage. But you... you forget that you carry the key to that cage in your pocket."

Then he turned. His turning his back and walking away felt like a dark curtain drawing over my heart. Not a goodbye, not a single glance backward.

This key... Did I hold it because I was the one who locked those emotions in the cage, or because I was the only one who could unlock them..?

I was left alone. I had always been alone anyway, but for the first time in a long while, this loneliness felt so overwhelmingly heavy.

I returned to the palace, not looking left or right, not casting a single glance at the owners of the voices mingling in whispers beside me. By sheer misfortune, the moment I turned down the corridor, I bumpted to someone. My palms, which had been clutching my skirts, found the floor as I fell on my butt. I felt a sharp stinging sensation.

I was at Neven's feet. Could this get even worse? With a wave of his hand, he dismissed his young fiancée behind him. I locked eyes with the girl for a second, but she left without making Neven repeat himself. Neven's crude gesture toward her took on a much more gentlemanly flair as he extended his hand to me.

I stubbornly decided to leave his hand empty. Smoothing out my voluminous dress, I stood up on my own two feet.

"What is with this rush? Are you looking for my brother again, Princess?" he smirked.

I wanted to walk away without offering a greeting, but especially without Ambrose by my side, I had no right to do so, regardless of how much I now possessed the title of Princess.

I took a deep breath. Without bowing my head, I merely looked at Neven out of the corner of my eye.

"Greetings, Prince Neven."

My words were polite but hollow. As if spoken to the wind.

He took a step closer. A slyly twisted smile rested on his face—confident, amused, and threatening.

"Ah, even the princess's voice is trembling today... Or is my brother refusing your service again tonight?"

There was a false tenderness in his voice. But his eyes said something else. A strange appetite.

I did not flinch. My eyes remained on his face, but the anger within me was swelling.

"What is your intention?" I asked in a brief, cold tone.

Neven tilted his head slightly; his eyes, gleaming beneath his thin brows, were fixed on me. "According to the whispers in the palace, Ambrose does not want a second wife. Is this a rebellion against our laws, our customs and traditions? How rebellious of him, isn't it? What a reformer he is!"

He smiled—but there was poison behind that smile.

"Of course, this also means... he will continue his life with you alone."

He paused for a moment. He let his words echo.

"An interesting choice," he added. "With someone like you... beautiful but barren, and cursed to boot. Where do you suppose it will end?"

He sounded as if he were telling a fairytale, but its ending was always a nightmare.

He took another step.

I flinched. My stomach churned. I stepped back, but the palace's narrow corridor left no room even to breathe.

Neven looked at me with a mocking smirk.

"The throne will fall to me, to my hands."

His eyes met mine. That look was like a bloodless threat.

"Besides... according to palace law, the Emperor may choose whomever he desires. Married, widowed, the former ruler's wife—it does not matter. The Emperor's desire is sufficient."

He locked his eyes onto mine.

"If Ambrose rejecting you is not your destiny..." he said quietly, "perhaps it was so you could be my queen."

"He is not rejecting me. W-We call it loyalty." I furrowed my brows; I could have said so much more, but it all lodged in my throat. To be his queen?

"Any heir capable of taking the throne forfeits everything he possesses the moment he rejects it."

It felt as if the blood had drained from my veins. My voice failed me. The entire world had gone silent. I could only hear my own breathing, fast and ragged.

Neven took a step back, as if he were about to feel ashamed of what he had said—but there was no regret in his eyes.

"I am merely reminding you of the options," he said, and walked away.

And I realized just how dangerous a place the palace truly was.

I stood rooted to the cold stone floor. I felt my legs trembling. It was a feeling worse than falling. The silence within me turned into a scream around me. At first, I couldn't take a single step.

Then...

I thought of the stables.
The forest beyond the border.
Freedom.
Escape.

If this place was a cage, I did not want to die in it. Neither in your heart, nor in the clutches of another. I will not be just another one of someone's wives, nor the next Emperor's plaything.