Rios’ words had haunted my dreams as if it had become a living thing inside me, poisoning every thought until I could taste the deception on my tongue.
I stood outside his chamber the next morning, my hand poised to knock, while his voice from the hallway encounter echoed in my mind.
The bastard had seen right through me, seen past the princess, past the duty, past every careful lie I'd built around my own desires.
And the worst part was that I couldn't stop thinking about it. About him.
I knocked before I could lose my nerve. "Enter."
He was waiting behind his desk as always, composed and unreadable. The morning light streaming through the windows caught the edge of his wing, creating prisms of color that danced across the sparse walls.
If he remembered our midnight confrontation, nothing in his expression revealed it.
"Sit," he said without preamble.
I took the chair across from him, folding my hands in my lap with practiced composure. But my pulse quickened as his silver-gray eyes studied me with that clinical intensity I'd come to both dread and crave.
"Today's lesson will be different," he announced, setting aside his usual leather journal. "No mirrors. No assignments. Just conversation."
I blinked. "Conversation?"
"Tell me something that gives you pleasure." His voice was matter-of-fact, as if he were asking about the weather. "Real pleasure. Unrelated to duty, expectation, or reward."
The question hit me like a slap. I opened my mouth, then closed it, my mind suddenly blank. Pleasure without duty? Without purpose? The concept felt foreign, almost incomprehensible.
"I..." I started, then stopped.
He waited. Not impatiently, not with judgment, just... waited. The silence stretched between us until it became unbearable.
"Books," I finally offered, my voice barely above a whisper. "There's a garden in Veridian, behind the east wing. I used to read there when I was younger."
Something shifted in his expression, not approval exactly, but acknowledgment. "What else?"
"Time alone, I suppose. Away from court, away from expectations." The words came easier now, like water finding its natural course. "Morning walks when no one else is awake. The smell of rain on summer stones."
He nodded, but I could see he wasn't finished. "And what does your body enjoy?"
Heat flooded my cheeks. "I don't understand—"
"Yes, you do." His gaze never wavered from mine. "These things you've mentioned, they're safe. Intellectual. Acceptable for a princess to admit." He leaned forward slightly. "But I'm asking about physical pleasure. What makes your skin warm? What makes your breath catch? What makes you feel alive in ways that have nothing to do with propriety?"
I tried to deflect, to turn the conversation back to safer ground. "Surely that's not relevant to—"
"You'll never survive this court if you can't even name your own hunger."
The words landed harder than I expected, cutting through my deflection like a blade through silk. Not cruel, not mocking, just... true.
Devastatingly, uncomfortably true. I didn't argue. For once, I just listened.
"Look around you," he continued, his voice steady and relentless. "Every person in this palace knows what they want and isn't afraid to take it. They understand their desires, their appetites, their hungers. You?" He tilted his head. "You're starving yourself of sensation and calling it virtue."
"That's not—"
"When was the last time you felt truly alive, Princess? Not dutiful, not proper, not acceptable, alive?"
The question hung in the air between us like a challenge. I wanted to give him some polished answer, some acceptable response that would end this uncomfortable probing.
But the words wouldn't come. Because I couldn't remember.
The realization struck me like a physical blow. When had I last felt anything beyond the narrow range of emotions considered appropriate for my station?
When had I last wanted something with desperate, consuming need? The silence stretched until it felt like drowning.
Rios rose from his chair and moved around the desk. He stopped just close enough that I could feel the warmth radiating from his body, and could catch the scent of sandalwood that seemed to cling to his skin.
"There's power in wanting something," he said, his voice dropping to barely above a whisper. "But more power in admitting it."
He turned and walked toward the window before I could respond, leaving me sitting there with his words echoing in my mind and something dangerous unfurling in my chest.
I stood on unsteady legs and made my way to the door, but paused at the threshold.
"Rios?" He turned, one eyebrow raised in question. "What if..." I swallowed hard. "What if admitting it changes everything?"
His smile was slow and knowing. "Princess, that's exactly the point."
I left his chamber with my hands shaking and my mind reeling.
Not just freedom or clarity or escape from this impossible situation. I wanted understanding. I wanted to know myself in ways I'd never dared explore.
I wanted to feel alive instead of just acceptable.
And the most dangerous part of all? That understanding, that awakening, might only come from the man I was supposed to hate.