Caden’s POV
I froze.
The question shouldn’t have undone me. It was simple, almost harmless in its wording, and yet it struck with the precision of a blade.
Do you hate me?
Hatred was something I understood. Hatred had edges, rules, direction. Hatred was clean. What lived in my chest when I looked at Elara was none of those things, and that was exactly why it terrified me.
Because I didn't know what it was.
It wasn't hate.
Was it love?
How would I know? I don't know what love is. I never knew what love feels like.
“I don’t know,” I said.
The answer slipped out before I could shape it into something colder. My voice cracked despite every lesson drilled into me since childhood, despite years of training meant to sand weakness from my bones. I heard it. She heard it too. The silence that followed was heavy, expectant.
Her expression didn’t harden the way I feared it would. Instead, her eyes softened, and that was somehow worse. Softness invited honesty, and honesty was a luxury I had never been allowed.
She reached for my hand.
Instinct screamed at me to pull away. Distance was safety. Distance was how you survived this family, this palace, this crown that devoured everything it touched. Affection was leverage. Affection was used. But I didn’t move. My fingers remained where they were, rigid and uncertain, and when her skin brushed mine, warmth spread in a way that made my chest tighten painfully.
“You don’t have to answer now,” she said quietly, as if she sensed the war inside me.
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” I replied, my voice low.
She tilted her head, studying me, and a small smile curved her lips. Not mocking. Understanding. “You’re terrible at lying.”
“I’m not lying.”
“You are,” she said gently. “Just not to me.”
I tried to step back. She stepped with me. I turned away, searching for an excuse, for an exit, for anything that would return the world to its usual, manageable order. She laughed softly when I opened my mouth again, and the sound struck something deep and unfamiliar.
“You’re thinking of leaving,” she said.
“I have duties.”
“You always do,” she countered. “And yet you’re still here.”
I exhaled sharply. “You read too much into things.”
“And you refuse to read into anything at all,” she replied. “You bury it and hope it dies.”
The words hit with unsettling accuracy.
We walked without deciding to, our steps echoing through the palace corridors as night settled fully. Torches flickered along stone walls. Guards bowed and looked away, giving us privacy without being asked. The palace felt different at night—less performative, more honest.
“The palace hates you,” I said finally, needing to anchor myself in something solid.
She shrugged. “The palace hates anyone it can’t control.”
“That should worry you.”
“It does,” she admitted. “But it doesn’t scare me enough to leave.”
I glanced at her then, really looked at her. Moonlight softened her features, stripped away the sharp edges court life tried to carve into her. She looked like someone who didn’t belong here—and yet somehow belonged more than most.
“You shouldn’t trust this place,” I said. “Or my family.”
“I don’t,” she replied simply.
“Then why stay?”
I hadn’t meant to ask it aloud, but the words escaped me all the same.
She slowed, and so did I.
We reached the inner gardens, fountains murmuring softly beneath the stars. Marble paths gleamed pale. The air smelled faintly of night-blooming flowers. It was quiet here, removed from judgment, from whispers, from the expectations that weighed on my shoulders like iron.
She stopped near the water. I stopped too.
“I grew up believing strength meant standing your ground,” she said. “Even when everything tells you to run.”
“That belief will get you hurt.”
“Maybe,” she replied. “But running would hurt more.”
I turned away, staring at the fountain, at the ripples breaking the reflection of the sky. “You don’t understand what you’re standing in the middle of.”
“I understand more than you think.”
“You shouldn’t have to,” I muttered.
Silence stretched between us, thick but not empty.
“My mother will never stop,” I said at last. “If she can’t remove you, she’ll try to break you. And if she fails, she’ll use me.”
She stepped closer, careful, deliberate. “Does she control you?”
The question sliced cleanly through my defenses.
“I don’t know,” I admitted, quieter now.
Her hand brushed mine again, grounding. “You’re not cruel,” she said. “You pretend to be, but cruelty doesn’t hesitate the way you do.”
I laughed bitterly. “You mistake restraint for mercy.”
“No,” she said. “I mistake it for fear.”
I closed my eyes.
Fear of disappointing my father. Fear of becoming my mother. Fear of wanting something I was taught to destroy before it destroyed me.
When I opened them, she was watching me with unwavering intensity.
“You wanted to know why I won’t leave,” she said softly.
She took my hand fully this time, fingers threading through mine as if it were the most natural thing in the world. I didn’t pull away. My pulse raced beneath her touch.
She looked into my eyes, steady and unafraid, and said, “Because some things are worth staying for—even when they scare you.”
The words settled between us, fragile and dangerous.
I didn’t know how to protect myself from wanting her to be right.