Helena’s POV
The door slams shut behind me with the finality of a coffin lid. My hands shake so violently I can barely turn the lock, metal scraping against metal until it finally clicks home. I press my spine against the wood, my legs giving out beneath me as I slide to the floor.
My journal. My private thoughts. My most vulnerable confessions—torn apart and scattered like entrails for the Academy’s amusement.
Every word I wrote in the dark hours of night now burns in my memory. Every admission of inadequacy, every whispered longing, every moment I dared to dream of being worthy of someone’s attention.
I wrap my arms around my knees, rocking slightly as the magnitude crashes over me. How many read those pages? How many laughed at the fat girl’s delusions? How many memorized my shame to use as ammunition later?
SLAM.
The door shudders in its frame. I jolt upright, heart hammering.
“Helena!” Henry’s voice cuts through the wood like a blade through silk—sharp, commanding, furious beyond measure.
“Go away,” I whisper, though I know he can’t hear me.
“Open this door. Now.”
“No.” The word comes out stronger this time, edged with desperation.
“I’m not leaving until you face me.”
“Then prepare to wait until the stones crumble, Your Highness. I have nothing left to say.”
Silence stretches between us, heavy as a held breath. Then I hear the rustle of paper.
My blood turns to ice.
“Sometimes I think I invented him,” Henry’s voice begins, clear and deliberate. “Like a storm I dreamed into being—beautiful and devastating and never meant to stay.”
“NO!” I lunge at the door, clawing at the wood. “Henry, please don’t—”
But he continues, relentless as winter wind: “Sometimes I wonder if he sees a girl worth knowing when he looks at me, or simply another disappointment taking up space in his perfect world.”
“Stop reading!” The words tear from my throat like a scream. “I’m begging you, please—”
“You wrote these words,” he says, his voice softening slightly. “You meant every one.”
“Not for you to hear!”
“Then for whom?” The question hangs in the air like a challenge. “Who else deserves to know the truth of what you feel?”
I press my forehead against the door, tears streaming down my cheeks. “It wasn’t meant for anyone. It was just… thoughts. Private thoughts.”
“Private thoughts that reveal more courage than I’ve seen in all the throne rooms of three kingdoms.”
“Courage?” I laugh bitterly. “You call self-pity courage?”
“I call honesty courage.” His voice moves closer to the door. “Do you want to know what I see when I look at you, Helena?”
I don’t answer. Can’t answer.
“I see the girl who walked into that bathing chamber and faced humiliation with her chin raised. Who stood before poison and refused to break. Who writes her fears on paper because she’s brave enough to confront them.”
My hand finds the door latch, trembling.
“I see someone who terrifies me,” he continues, his voice dropping to barely above a whisper. “Because she makes me want to be more than what I was born to be.”
“Henry…” My voice cracks like glass under pressure.
“Because she saw through every mask I wear and somehow, impossibly, still wanted what was underneath.”
The lock turns beneath my shaking fingers.
The door swings open.
He stands there bathed in moonlight, my letter clutched in his hand, his dark eyes blazing with something that might be fury or might be something else entirely.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I whisper, backing away from the intensity of his presence. “You’re a prince. This is beneath you.”
“Nothing about you is beneath me,” he says, stepping across the threshold. “You’re the only person who makes me forget that I’m supposed to be anything other than human.”
“They’re all laughing at me.” The admission falls from my lips like a confession.
“Let them laugh.” His voice turns sharp as steel. “They mock what they can’t understand—someone brave enough to feel without apology.”
“Then why aren’t you laughing?” I ask, searching his face for any trace of cruelty.
He moves closer, close enough that I can see the storm brewing in his eyes. “Because I’m not afraid of your honesty, Helena. I’m afraid of what I’d become without it.”
The silence between us crackles with electricity, charged with everything we’ve never dared say aloud.
“Why are you here?” I whisper, my voice barely audible.
His answer comes like lightning striking earth: “Because you saw the worst parts of me and still wanted something more. And now I need to handle this mess before it gets worse.”
“Handle what mess?”
“The fallout from tonight. My parents will have heard about our very public display by now.” His smile turns sharp. “Someone needs to manage the damage before they declare war on you personally.”
“And you think you can just… talk them out of it?”
“I think I can remind them that their son is capable of making his own choices.” He steps closer, his voice dropping. “Starting with this one.”
Before I can ask what ‘this one’ means, his hands frame my face and he kisses me. Not the desperate, hungry kiss from the stage, but something softer. More certain. Like he’s sealing a promise instead of making a confession.
When he pulls back, I’m breathless and probably glowing like an idiot.
“What was that for?” I manage.
“Practice,” he says, that infuriating smirk returning. “For all the times I’ll need to do it in front of people who think I shouldn’t.”
“Confident, aren’t we?”
“Terrified, actually.” His thumb brushes my cheek. “But I’d rather be terrified with you than bored without you.”
God, he’s going to be the death of me.
“Go,” I say, stepping back before I lose what’s left of my self-control. “Handle your damage control. I need to find Mirelle anyway.”
“Your sister who’s been avoiding you?”
“The very one.” I straighten my shoulders. “Time to have a conversation that’s about three months overdue.”
He nods, understanding immediately. “Good luck.”
“You too, Your Highness.”
As he disappears into the shadows, I touch my lips where his kiss still burns and wonder if I’m brave enough for whatever comes next.