POV: Celeste
The candles explode before I understand that I am afraid.
One moment, the long table glows the way it always does in the morning—golden light bouncing off polished silver, steam curling gently from cups of tea—and the next, the flames shudder. They stretch too tall, thin and sharp like they are reaching for something above them, and then they burst outward with a sound like glass screaming.
I flinch, squeezing my eyes shut, but it doesn’t stop. I hear the crack before I feel it. The crystal goblet beside my plate fractures down the middle, a thin white line racing through it like lightning trapped in ice. Another follows. Then another. The sound fills the hall—sharp snaps and splintering cries—until it feels like the room itself is breaking.
Someone gasps. I open my eyes.
The candles are out. Smoke coils upward in uneven lines, stinging my nose. Wax drips down the silver holders in thick, ugly rivulets. Shards of glass glitter across the tablecloth like fallen stars. I stare at my hands, still folded neatly in my lap the way my governess taught me, and I don’t understand how any of this has happened.
“I didn’t—” I whisper, but my voice is too small to matter.
Across the table, a servant freezes mid-step. The tray in her hands trembles, plates rattling softly. She looks at me, really looks at me, and her face drains of color so quickly it frightens me more than the broken glass.
The tray slips from her fingers.
It crashes to the floor with a terrible, echoing sound. Porcelain shatters. Tea splashes across the marble like spilled blood.
The hall goes silent.
I feel it then, the way the air changes. It tightens, pulling inward, as if everyone is holding their breath at the same time. Chairs scrape back. Someone whispers my name, but it isn’t said kindly. It sounds like a warning.
“Enough,” my father’s voice cuts through the stillness, sharp and cold.
The servant drops to her knees immediately, hands shaking as she scrambles to gather the broken pieces. Her head stays bowed, her shoulders trembling. She keeps murmuring apologies, her voice thin and frantic, as if saying the words quickly enough might save her.
I slide out of my chair without thinking. “It’s my fault,” I say. “I scared her. I didn’t mean to, I—”
“Celeste.” My mother’s voice is soft, but it isn’t gentle. It has the careful tone she uses when she is afraid of something breaking. “Stay where you are.”
The servant doesn’t look up when the guards move toward her. They pull her to her feet roughly, glass still clutched in her fingers. She cries out once when a shard cuts her skin, a sharp sound that makes my stomach twist.
“I didn’t do anything,” she sobs. “I swear, Your Majesty, I didn’t—”
“Clumsiness has consequences,” my father says. “Remove her.”
They drag her away. Her cries echo down the corridor, growing fainter with every step.
I feel something cold settle in my chest.
Around me, no one speaks. No one meets my eyes. Even the courtiers who were laughing moments ago now sit stiffly, hands folded, gazes fixed anywhere but on me. It feels as if an invisible circle has opened around my chair, a space no one wants to cross.
My mother rises from her seat. She does not look at me when she speaks. “This breakfast is concluded.”
Her eyes flick briefly to the shattered tableware, then away, as if even looking at the damage might invite it to happen again.
“Escort the princess back to her chambers,” she says quietly.
Two guards step forward at once.
I don’t move.
“I can walk,” I say, my voice shaking. “I always walk by myself.”
My mother finally looks at me then. There is something in her eyes I don’t recognize. Not anger. Not love. It looks like fear wrapped carefully in silk.
“Please,” she says, as if she is the one asking for something. “Celeste. Just this once.”
I nod because I don’t know what else to do.
The guards keep a careful distance as they guide me away from the table, their hands hovering near me without ever touching. I notice it because they always used to hold my hand when I was younger. Now they walk like I might burn them if they get too close.
***
My chambers feel different when I return to them. The walls are the same pale blue, the curtains still tied neatly with silver cord, but something has shifted. The air feels heavier, like it does before a storm. I sit on the edge of my bed and swing my legs slowly, staring at the carpet and trying not to cry.
I don’t understand what I did.
I replay the breakfast again and again in my head, searching for the moment when everything went wrong. I remember thinking the candles were too bright. I remember wishing they would stop flickering. I remember feeling something warm and tight in my chest, like a knot pulling inward.
That’s all.
A knock sounds at the door.
I look up, startled. “Yes?”
The door opens just enough for Maximilian to slip inside. He closes it carefully behind him, turning the latch with exaggerated slowness like he’s afraid the sound might give him away.
“You weren’t supposed to come,” I say quickly. “They’ll get in trouble.”
“I don’t care,” he says.
He crosses the room in three long strides and sits down beside me on the bed, close enough that our shoulders touch. He doesn’t hesitate. He doesn’t pull away.
I stare at the place where our arms meet, my breath caught somewhere between my ribs and my throat.
“You’re not scared,” I say.
He snorts softly. “Why would I be?”
“Everyone else is,” I whisper.
He turns to face me fully, his brow furrowing the way it does when he’s thinking hard. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
I swallow. “The candles—”
“Candles are stupid,” he interrupts. “They flicker all the time. The glass was old. That servant dropped the tray because she was clumsy, not because of you.”
“That’s not what they think,” I say.
“I don’t care what they think,” he says again, more firmly this time.
He reaches out and takes my hand.
I tense automatically, waiting for the sharp jolt, the strange feeling that sometimes runs through me when people get too close. Nothing happens. No crack. No spark. Just his hand, warm and solid and real.
“You’re still my sister,” he says. “You’re still Celeste.”
My throat tightens. “What if I break something else?”
“Then we’ll clean it up,” he says, shrugging. “Or blame it on someone else.”
I let out a shaky laugh before I can stop myself. It sounds wrong in the quiet room, too loud and too thin.
Maximilian smiles at me, quick and fierce. “See? You’re fine.”
I want to believe him.
When he finally stands to leave, he squeezes my hand one last time. “I’ll come back tomorrow,” he promises.
After he’s gone, I lie back on my bed and stare at the ceiling.
Somewhere deep inside me, something shifts.
I don’t know its name yet. I only know that it feels lonely, and heavy, and awake.