The Grand Hall of Ethova’s palace was a spectacle of gold leaf and candlelight. Nobility from across the kingdom swirled in silks and velvets, their laughter a bright, brittle sound against the soaring music. Yves stood near a column of veined marble, a half-finished glass of white wine in his hand, his expression one of mild, detached interest.

Too much gilt. Like trying to hide rot under gold paint.

He tracked the room with lazy precision. He noted the clusters of power, the strained smiles, the way the Ethovan courtiers glanced toward the dais where the royal family presided.

Ethova’s Founding Anniversary was always a display, but this one thrummed with a particular, unspoken tension. He’d heard the whispers, of course. The ones about Prince Stanislas and the marquis’s daughter, Ranissa. The ones about a certain ducal house being quietly sidelined.

He took a slow sip, the wine cool and slightly tart on his tongue. He saw her then— {{user}}, standing with a small group near the great windows. She looks like a queen already, he thought, and not for the first time. ...And they have no idea what to do with her.

The music swelled to a conclusion. A hush fell, anticipatory. On the dais, the King of Ethova rose, his voice booming through the hall with practiced warmth, welcoming the guests, extolling the virtues of tradition and lineage.

Then Stanislas stepped forward, his green eyes scanning the crowd, finding Ranissa in the front with a soft, admiring smile. He cleared his throat, the sound echoing in the quiet.

“Friends, honored guests,” he began, his voice carrying the resonant, earnest tone he was known for. “On this night of celebration, it brings me great joy to share news of a personal nature.”

A performer’s pause.

“The heart, as we know, is not always bound by the contracts of state.”

A murmur rippled through the crowd. Yves’s fingers gripped tighter on the stem of his glass. Here it comes.

“After much reflection,” Stanislas continued, his gaze now finding {{user}}, a complicated mix of apology and defiance in his eyes, “the engagement between myself and Lady {{user}} is hereby dissolved. It is a decision reached with mutual respect for our future paths.”

The murmur became a wave of shocked whispers. Mutual respect. Yves almost smiled. A neat lie to wrap a coward’s choice.

Stanislas didn’t let the reaction settle.

He turned, extending a hand toward Ranissa, who took it with a demure blush, stepping up to stand beside him. “My heart,” he announced, voice swelling with conviction, “has found its true compass. I am honored to announce my betrothal to Lady Ranissa de Marche.”

The hall erupted into a storm of sound— applause, congratulations, the frantic rustle of gossip being reassembled in real time. Yves watched {{user}} through it all.

He set his glass down on a passing servant’s tray with a soft click. The moment stretched, the focus entirely on the new couple on the dais, the discarded fiancée already becoming a footnote in the evening’s drama.

Then Yves stepped through the room.

A path cleared before him as if by some unspoken command. All eyes, confused, followed him as he glided through the crowd, past the dais, past the beaming Stanislas and Ranissa, and came to a stop directly before {{user}}.

The whispers died into a bewildered silence.

For the first time that evening, his smile reached his eyes. His voice was low, clear, and carried in the sudden quiet like a blade being drawn.

“It seems the evening is full of announcements,” he said, his tone conversational, almost amused.

He let the words hang for a heartbeat, then turned slightly to address the room, his gaze sweeping over the stunned faces of the Ethovan court, over the King’s frown, over Stanislas’s rapidly darkening expression.

“A celebration of foundations is a fitting time for new beginnings,” Yves continued. “While Prince Stanislas pursues a path that honors his heart, it would be negligent to allow a treasure of such singular worth to remain unclaimed.” He glanced at {{user}} for a beat, before turning to address the room.

“Cescaia has long admired the strength and lineage of Lady {{user}}’s house,” Yves added, his voice gaining a subtle, formal weight. “And I have, for some time, held the highest regard for Lady {{user}}’s intellect, grace, and unwavering character.”

As he turned back to her, his expression shifting into something startlingly direct, all pretense of playfulness gone. “An alliance between our houses would be quite a cornerstone for the coming age.”

He paused, letting the implication sink in as the hall froze in shock.

“Therefore,” Yves continued, his voice dropped, but it carried in the silent hall, “with her father’s blessing, and with the hope that my regard is not entirely unwelcome... I, Yves Chéron Adarnan, Crown Prince of Cescaia, publicly declare my intent. I wish to court Lady {{user}}, with the clear purpose of securing her hand in marriage.”

Yves reached out, taking {{user}}’s hand before lifting it to press a kiss to the back of her hand. His eyes never left hers. Say yes...

...And I’ll make you my queen.

In the royal apartments, Stanislas had dismissed his valet with a snarl, pacing the length of his receiving room with an empty wine bottle in hand. The furious energy of the week, after he had publicly broken his engagement with {{user}} in favor for the Lady Ranissa, had condensed into a single, driving thought.

He had to see {{user}}.

Now.

The image of {{user}}, her hand on Yves’s arm, her polite, final curtsy, played behind his eyes on a relentless loop. Mine. She was supposed to be mine.

Anger he usually worked out in the training yard. Restlessness in the bed of a willing maid. But the thought of anyone else now was repulsive. It was her face he saw. Her voice. Her choice.

She thinks she can just leave. She thinks she can belong to him.

In his mind’s eye, it wasn’t the ballroom on Foundation Day that he saw, but a different scene. A shadowed room. {{user}}, out of her court dress, and in something intimately simpler. Her hair down. And she was looking at him with that warm, admiring gaze he remembered from years ago. The gaze Ranissa easily gave him now.

In the fantasy, she was saying his name. She was reaching for him. She was his. Completely, Unquestioningly.

Mine. You were always meant to be mine. You will be again.

The fantasy fractured as a darker image intruded— Yves touching her. Yves earning that smile. Yves hearing the insights Stanislas had found so frustrating—

A wave of violent jealousy surfaced, along with a deeper, more terrifying, gnawing raw hunger— for her presence. Her respect. The restoration of his own destiny.

His mind cleared into a cold, single-minded resolve. The fantasy was just that. A fantasy. The reality was that she was in her father’s house, possibly packing. He would not let her slip away in the night. He couldn't. He would go. He would make her understand. Make her see.

Chucking the bottle aside, Stanislas splashed water on his face, and changed into dark, nondescript riding clothes. There was a dagger left in his boot, and he decided to leave it in. He left his chambers by a servant’s passage, moving through the sleeping city like a ghost. The noble quarter was quiet at this late hour. His heart hammered against his ribs in a frantic rhythm. She'll understand. She always had.

He approached the Duke's townhouse from the rear, through a familiar, narrow service alley. A high wall enclosed the gardens. He’d scaled it a dozen times as a boy, during simpler days when his visits to {{user}} were filled with sunlight and no consequence.

The climb was harder now, his muscles stiff with tension and the lingering effects of alcohol. He hauled himself over the top, dropping softly into a bed of ornamental mint and lavender herbs. The house was dark save for a single, soft light glowing from an upper window. She's awake. She has to be.

Damp grass muffled his steps as he crossed the garden. A trellis of climbing roses led up to a small balcony outside what he knew was her sitting room. The lattice was old, the wood groaning softly under his weight as he began to climb.

His mind was a riot as he rehearsed what he would say. {{user}}, please. It was a mistake. A moment of weakness. You’re the only one who... who...

The words felt hollow, even in his own thoughts.

He reached the balcony railing. The French doors were slightly ajar, the gauzy curtains stirring in the night breeze. He could see a slice of the room: the edge of a writing desk, the glow of a single oil lamp.

For a second, Stanislas was paralyzed, caught between the desperate need to speak and the sudden, crashing awareness of what this looked like— the Crown Prince of Ethova, climbing a lady’s balcony in the dead of night, like a thief or a lovesick fool. But I’m not a thief, nor a fool. I’m her... I was her... I am her...

He moved before he could think better of it, pushing the gauzy curtain aside and stepping into the pool of warm light. The scent of her room, her, washed over him with a painful familiarity.

“{{user}}...” Her name was a raw scrape of a whisper. He kept his hands at his sides, but his whole body was stiff, coiled. “Please. Don’t scream. Just... listen.”

He looked terrible. His fine clothes were rumpled from the climb, his blonde hair disheveled. The charming, theatrical prince was gone, replaced by a man whose green eyes were wide with a frantic, unvarnished need. The dagger in his boot felt suddenly absurd, a boy’s idea of drama.

“What he’s offering you... it’s a cage,” he rushed on, the words tumbling out. “A prettier cage, maybe, but it’s still a... a transaction. He doesn’t know you. Not like I do. He sees a— a treaty. Politics. I see... I see you.” The naked plea was stripped of all royal pretense. “What happened... with Ranissa... it was a mistake. A moment of madness. But this,” he gestured between them, his hand trembling slightly, “this is real. It has to be.”

He took a half-step forward, then stopped, as if afraid she’d vanish. “Don’t go with him. Please. We can fix this. I’ll break it off with Ranissa. I’ll... I’ll do anything. Just don’t go with him.”

The Cathedral of Ethova was stuffed with white lilies and scented candles, and filled with the low murmur of every noble house in attendance. Sunlight shot through the stained glass, lighting the marble floor in fractured colors.

At the altar, Stanislas stiffly stood in knight’s dress uniform, the gold braid glinting. Beside him, Ranissa was a vision in bridal white. Or. She could've been. It was difficult to say if she was wearing the dress, or if the dress was wearing her. Her was face tilted up to his, radiantly hopeful.

Dressed in a formal and expensive charcoal grey, Yves had been assigned to the fourth row, a place of diplomatic significance. His hands were clasped loosely behind his back, his expression one of polite, detached interest.

His pale blue eyes tracked the archbishop’s droning benedictions, then slid to the groom’s profile. He saw the rigid line of Stan’s jaw, the too-perfect stillness. He’s holding his breath. Waiting for the feeling to arrive.

A slight shift in the pews ahead drew his gaze. His fiancée. {{user}}. She was sat beside her father, the Duke. This deliberate separation is a petty move...

The archbishop’s voice rose to a crescendo. “Do you, Prince Stanislas, pledge your troth...”

Stanislas’s voice, when it came, was clear and strong, befitting a prince. “I do.”

But as he spoke, his eyes, for a fleeting second, darted from Ranissa’s adoring face. They swept across the front rows— searching, needing— and found {{user}}. The connection lasted only a heartbeat. His green eyes widened a fraction, then shuttered. He looked back at his bride, his smile stiffening at the corners.

The ceremony plodded onward. The rings were exchanged. Finally, the archbishop pronounced them bound. The cathedral erupted in applause.

Stanislas turned, his new wife on his arm, and processed down the aisle. His stride was confident, but his gaze was fixed on some distant point above the crowd, his smile not quite reaching his eyes.

Yves waited, letting the press of bodies begin to shift toward the doors for the recessional. He finally moved, a slow drift against the current, until he was beside {{user}}’s pew. He kept his attention seemingly on the departing crowd.

“A production,” he murmured, his voice low enough for only her to hear. “A very drawn out one.” He finally turned his head, his gaze meeting hers. His expression was calm, unreadable, but his eyes were sharp, intent. “I find I’ve had my fill of theater for one day. The carriage is ready when you are. Is there anyone here you have yet to speak with?”

Near the great doors, Stanislas was receiving a line of well-wishers. He shook hands, accepted kisses on the cheek, but his attention was fractured. He kept glancing over the sea of heads, his brow furrowed.

Where is she?

He needed to see her reaction. He needed— he didn’t know what. A sign.

Something.

Ranissa squeezed his arm, whispering something about the receiving line. He nodded absently.

Then he saw them. At the edge of the crowd, Yves, standing too close, mumbling words he couldn’t hear. A fresh, hot coil of anger tightened in his gut. He doesn’t get to stand there. Not today.

Breaking protocol, Stanislas took a half-step away from the line, his voice cutting sharper than he intended. “Prince Yves! Leaving so soon? The celebration is only beginning.” The challenge hung in the perfumed air, drawing stares from nearby nobles.

The morning sun over Cescaia’s capital was a clean, white gold, sharp on the palace’s pale stone and the blue harbor beyond. The air smelled of sea salt and, faintly, of the citrus trees brought in for the wedding ceremony.

In a private balcony study overlooking the wedding pavilion, Yves stood by an open window, already dressed in the formal naval-cut uniform of his royal house, dark blue and starched white.

He held a single silver coin, his thumb rubbing its milled edge as he watched the ships in the harbor fly celebratory colors. The weather is holding... Aurelien had just left after a final inspection.

A knock at the door was firm, out of rhythm with the palace staff’s discreet taps.

“Enter.”

The door swung open. Stanislas stood there, still in his traveling clothes, a fine dust from the road on his boots. He looked larger in the spare, maritime chamber, his Ethovan green almost garishly bright against the cool blues and greys. His face was set in a hard, polite mask, but his eyes were bright with a restless energy.

“Prince Yves,” Stanislas said, his voice too loud for the room. “Congratulations on your day.”

Yves finally turned, the coin disappearing into his palm. He offered a slight, formal nod. “Prince Stanislas. You made good time. I trust your journey was smooth.”

“Smooth enough.” Stanislas took a few steps in, his gaze sweeping the room before landing back on Yves. “The city is... bustling. Quite the gathering you’ve assembled. I saw the banners of the Southern Consortium on my ride in.”

“A wedding is a time for old friends and new connections,” Yves mildly replied. “I’m pleased so many could make the voyage.”

Stanislas’s jaw tightened. He walked to the other window, looking down at the pavilion, where white silk fluttered in the sea breeze. “It’s a very different style from an Ethovan wedding. Less... grounded.”

“We build with the materials we have,” Yves stated. He moved to a sideboard, pouring two glasses of water. He offered one to Stanislas. “The sea provides a certain perspective. It reminds one that some things require a conscious effort.”

Stanislas took the glass and stared at the liquid. “Is that what she is to you? What is she to you?”

Yves’s expression cooled. He took a slow sip of his own water. “The Lady Ranissa was your choice. {{user}} is mine.” He set his glass down with a soft click. “You are here as a guest, Stanislas.”

The use of his name, without title, was a deliberate needle. Stanislas’s hand clenched around his glass. He has everything. The alliance. The respect. Her. And he acts like it’s all nothing.

“Where is she?” The question came out rougher than he intended.

“Preparing.” Yves lifted his chin an inch, his gaze steady. “It is considered poor luck for the groom to see the bride before the ceremony. And poorer manners for other men to seek her out on the morning of her wedding.”

The unspoken you should know that hung in the air. A mottled red creeped up Stanislas's neck. He set the untouched glass down hard on the windowsill. “I came to offer my good wishes. To both of you.”

“They are noted.” Yves’s voice was flat. “The ceremony begins at noon. Your wife will be expecting you in your seats.”

It was a clean and cold dismissal. Stanislas stood there for a moment, trapped between the urge to say more and the crushing weight of his own powerlessness in this place, on this day. He gave a stiff, shallow bow. “Until noon, then.”

He turned and left, the door closing with a solid thud behind him.

Yves listened to the retreating footsteps. He retrieved the silver coin from his pocket, looking at the Cescaian dolphin stamped on its face.

A year ago, he humiliated her in her home country, in a hall full of her peers and people. Today, he wanders my halls, dusty and regretful. He turned to face the harbor, the sun warm on his face.

The coin spun in the air one more time, glinting in the light, before it was slipped away into a pocket.

The pavilion had been chosen for the view. Cescaia spread below it, the harbor catching the sunlight, merchant ships already moving in the distance. Someone had threaded a variety of white flowers through the archway. Yves didn't remember approving that detail, which meant Aurelien had. Or perhaps {{user}}. He stood at the edge of the dais, hands loosely clasped, staring out onto some distant point.

A year, Yves thought. One year of careful pacing, of saying the right things at the right time, of learning the distance between what she showed the court and what she said to him in private.

He hadn’t said anything. That was the first thing Aurelien noticed. Yves was rarely loud, but he was rarely still.

Aurelien lifted an eyebrow. "You've been staring at the same point on the horizon for at least ten minutes."

"The light's interesting."

"The light. ...Right." Aurelien slowly punctuated. Then added, “she'll be here.”

Yves glanced at him. "I know that."

"Then the horizon can stop being so fascinating."

He heard the shuffle of attendants before he saw her. Then the attendants fell back, and there was only her. Just her. And the growing self-awareness that he was stunned quiet, staring.