I wasn't summoned the next morning.
No bells.
No knocks.
No whispers outside the door.
Just silence.
And sunlight.
It crept in through the cracks in the curtains like it was trespassing — pale and golden, too gentle for a place that thrived on stone and shadow.
The seal inside me didn't pulse. But it… stirred.
Like something had moved above it.
Or below.
My robe was folded over the chair.
Not the slate-blue one.
Not the Solharan one.
A new one.
White.
Lined with thread so faint I could barely see it — not embroidery, not runes, just something shaped like veins.
I didn't want to put it on.
I did anyway.
The gardens were closed to the public.
Always.
Only the queen walked them during the sacred moons. Sometimes the king, in the early days. Sometimes the High Priests, if summoned.
But now?
A servant waited just outside my door.
He didn't speak. Didn't bow.
Just handed me a note and left.
The handwriting was Solharan. Slanted. Beautiful.
"If they won't let you see the sun, come where it still remembers you."
Below it: a time. A gate.
Signed: E.
The East Garden smelled like warm fruit.
There were no guards.
No watchers.
No Kael.
Just golden hedges, marble paths, and distant sounds of water falling over carved stone.
Elarion stood by a small pond, feeding the koi with seeds from his palm.
He turned before I stepped close.
"Forgive the message," he said. "I wasn't sure you'd come without it."
I didn't speak.
Not out of silence.
Out of self-preservation.
He studied my face.
Not intrusively. Not with hunger or curiosity.
Just studied.
Like he was cataloguing something fragile before it broke.
"You don't speak in public."
It wasn't a question.
I shook my head.
"I wouldn't either," he said. "If they spoke to me like they do to you."
He walked along the pond's edge, robes trailing behind him like mist.
"Do you know what Solhara teaches about silence?" he asked.
I didn't answer.
He smiled anyway.
"That silence is sacred. That it is not the absence of sound, but the presence of restraint."
He turned to me.
"You must be very sacred."
I should have left.
Should have bowed.
Should have remembered that I wasn't allowed to be alone in the garden with anyone — let alone a prince from a kingdom that once tried to conquer ours.
But no one stopped me.
No one told me no.
So I stayed.
And Elarion sat beside the koi pond and told me about the way the moon looks in Solhara. How it's red only twice a year. How the priests write songs to the stars because their gods live in constellations, not statues.
I listened.
Not because I trusted him.
But because no one had ever spoken to me like that — like I was allowed to listen.
We didn't touch.
He didn't offer.
But the space between us was… light.
Unburdened.
And for one second, just one, I forgot what it felt like to be afraid of warmth.
I didn't know Kael had been watching until that night.
The mirror was waiting in my room.
Cracked.
The same one.
But now… humming.
I didn't touch it.
Didn't go near.
But I saw what he saw.
Me.
In the garden.
Sitting beside Elarion.
Expression neutral.
Eyes half-lowered.
Back straight.
Breath quiet.
Then the image shifted.
Kael's eyes.
My reflection in them.
The mark on my chest glowing faintly.
And then — Elarion's fingers.
Not touching.
Just… extended.
Too close.
Closer than they should've been.
The mirror cracked again.
Not physically.
In sound.
Like something screamed through glass.
Then it went dark.
I dropped to my knees.
Not from fear.
From the weight of the seal.
It pulsed — hard, like a heartbeat without rhythm.
Like a warning.
Not from Kael.
From something older.
I didn't sleep.
I stood in front of the mirror for hours, waiting for it to return.
It didn't.
But I knew what it meant.
He'd seen it.
He knew.
The next morning, the guards who once ignored me now looked away when I passed.
Not in scorn.
In fear.
Like I had become part of something they weren't allowed to name.
The queen held court again.
Only nobles attended.
I wasn't summoned.
But I knew Kael would be there.
I could feel the shift in the air.
The shadow beneath the halls grew colder.
The silence between steps sharper.
I cleaned the prayer hall that afternoon.
It was usually empty.
But today — there was a sound.
Not footsteps.
Not whispers.
Breathing.
Controlled.
Measured.
Deliberate.
I didn't turn.
But I didn't need to.
He was behind me.
Kael.
He didn't speak.
Didn't move.
But I felt the space between us narrow.
Not physically.
Magically.
Emotionally.
The seal burned.
A soft heat. Familiar now.
Wrongly familiar.
He stepped closer.
I didn't turn.
He stayed behind me, just out of reach.
Close enough to see the way my shoulders tensed.
Far enough not to be accused of touching.
"You smiled."
His voice was quiet.
Low.
Almost warm.
But not really.
Not truly.
"You smiled for him."
I said nothing.
"You didn't flinch when he reached for you."
My hands tightened around the cloth I was using.
Still I said nothing.
"You've forgotten," Kael said.
It wasn't cruel.
It was soft.
Like a lullaby before a blade.
"Let me remind you."
That night, I found another mark.
Not a wound.
A rune.
Small.
Hidden beneath the edge of my collarbone.
It hadn't been there before.
But now it glowed faintly when I touched the white robe.
Solharan silk.
The rune flickered.
Then faded.
Kael had marked it.
A suppression rune.
Subtle.
But real.
Not a threat.
A limit.
Like he was reminding me what I wore — and who it belonged to.
The robe was burned that night.
I didn't light the fire.
But it turned to ash anyway.
And when I went to bed, I slept in silence.
No dreams.
Just the pulse of the mark.
And the faint sound of Kael whispering through glass.
"You're not ready to be with anyone else."