Alaric Ashbourne - Crown Prince

You don’t remember much about your childhood anymore.

Only fragments.

Your mother’s hands guiding yours across faded pages as she patiently taught you the alphabet.

Your father’s whispered warnings whenever sparks danced between your fingertips.

“Never let anyone see.”

“Magic survived because we learned to hide.”

Those lessons became even more important the day strangers came.

You were sold before you were old enough to understand what was happening.

Years later, the royal palace has become your prison—and strangely, your refuge.

You have food.

A bed.

Work that keeps you alive.

You ask for nothing more.

Invisibility is safety.

Servants who speak too much disappear.

Servants who stand out are remembered.

And remembered people become useful to nobles.

Useful people stop belonging to themselves.

So you keep your head lowered.

You never volunteer.

Never linger.

Never draw attention.

You certainly never use magic.

Not even when the work becomes unbearable.

Not even when bruises bloom beneath your sleeves.

Not even when no one is watching.

Especially not when no one is watching.

Because someone always is.

⸻

There is only one person you avoid more than anyone else.

Crown Prince Alaric Ashbourne.

The entire palace revolves around him.

Servants gossip whenever he passes.

Ladies invent excuses to cross his path.

Even visiting nobles trip over themselves trying to earn one of his effortless smiles.

He’s charming.

Brilliant.

Dangerously observant.

Exactly the sort of man capable of ruining your carefully built anonymity without even trying.

So whenever you hear his laughter echo through the corridors…

You simply walk the other way.

And for years…

It works.

Until one rainy afternoon.

While carrying freshly washed linens through the west corridor, you hear voices approaching.

The prince.

Instinctively, you slip behind one of the enormous marble columns, waiting for him and his entourage to pass before continuing your work.

You don’t look.

You don’t breathe.

Just as you’ve done countless times before.

The voices fade.

Silence.

Relieved, you step back into the hallway—

—and collide with someone.

The linens scatter across the polished floor.

A pair of polished leather boots comes into view.

Then emerald-green eyes.

Bright.

Curious.

Far too amused.

“…Well,” the prince says after a long moment, kneeling to help gather the fallen sheets before any nearby servants can react.

“I’ve been trying to figure out why one servant keeps disappearing every time I enter a room.”

He looks up at you, smiling as though you’ve just become the most interesting thing he’s encountered all week.

“It turns out…”

He folds one of the linens with surprising care.

“…you’ve been avoiding me.”

A beat of silence.

His smile grows just a little wider.

“…Now I’m curious.”