The invitation burned in my mind like a brand.
Prince Luka's words echoed in my head, his charm, his admiration, the way he'd looked at me like I was something precious and rare.
This should have been my moment of triumph. The prince himself had singled me out, invited me to what could only be an intimate encounter. Everything I'd been sent here to accomplish was within reach.
So why did I feel so hollow?
I moved to my vanity on unsteady legs, sinking onto the velvet-cushioned stool. My reflection stared back, flushed cheeks, bright eyes, hair still perfectly arranged despite the evening's events.
I looked like a woman who'd been successfully courted, who should be glowing with anticipation. Instead, I felt... manufactured.
Luka had been everything a prince should be, handsome, confident, charming. But there had been something practiced about it all, as if he were following a script he'd performed countless times before.
The way he'd positioned me to see that passionate couple, the deliberate brush of his thumb across my shoulder, even his parting invitation, it all felt staged. Like a test.
My gaze fell to the small mirror Rios had given me, lying beside a gold-trimmed perfume bottle on the vanity's surface. I picked it up, feeling its familiar weight in my palm, but I didn't lift it to look, not yet.
Luka's attention had made me feel wanted, desired in a way that should have been flattering. But Rios... Rios made me feel seen, even when I desperately didn't want to be.
That difference frightened me more than I cared to admit.
The clock on my mantel chimed midnight, its sound echoing through the quiet chamber. Luka would be waiting.
A prince didn't make invitations like that idly, and keeping him waiting would be both foolish and potentially disastrous for the alliance. But my feet wouldn't move toward the door.
Restlessness drove me from the vanity, through my chambers, and finally out into the palace corridors. The marble floors were cool beneath my silk slippers as I wandered aimlessly, my thoughts a tangle of duty and desire and something else I couldn't name.
Without conscious direction, my feet carried me through the palace's winding passages until I found myself near the entrance to the Pleasure Gardens.
The night air drifted through the ornate archway, carrying voices on its current, soft music, distant laughter, and sighs that spoke of pleasure freely given and received.
I lingered just outside the entrance, hidden in the shadows where no one could see me. My heart hammered against my ribs as I listened to the sounds of Aurelion's nighttime freedom.
Somewhere in those gardens, Prince Luka waited for me.
The path stretched before me, lit by glowing lanterns that created pools of golden light. All I had to do was walk forward, step into that world of silk cushions and whispered desires, and claim the future that had been planned for me since birth.
Instead, I turned away. My feet moved of their own accord, carrying me back toward the quiet corridors where duty couldn't follow quite so easily.
I'd made it only a few steps when a figure stepped out of the shadows, stopping me cold.
Rios. He emerged from an alcove I would have sworn was empty, his presence filling the space like a gathering storm.
In the dim corridor lighting, his single wing caught fragments of illumination, creating patterns of light and shadow across his sharp features.
He said nothing at first, just looked at me with those silver-gray eyes that seemed to see everything I was trying to hide.
The silence stretched between us until I thought I might scream from the weight of it.
"What are you doing here?" I finally managed, my voice barely above a whisper.
His head tilted slightly, a gesture that was becoming familiar. "Watching."
The single word sent a shiver down my spine. "Watching what?"
"You." He paused, letting the word hang in the air between us. "Wondering when you'll stop lying to yourself."
Heat flooded my cheeks. "I don't know what you mean."
Something that might have been amusement flickered in his eyes. "You were never going to go."
His words hit me like a physical blow. Not because they were cruel, but because they were true. I'd known from the moment Luka whispered his invitation that I wouldn't follow through.
Had known it even as I'd wandered the halls, even as I'd lingered outside the gardens like some lovesick maiden.
"The prince—" I started, but Rios cut me off with a look.
"The prince offered you exactly what you thought you wanted," he said, his voice low and cutting. "Power. Position. The promise of a future that looks exactly like the past you're trying to escape."
"I'm not trying to escape anything."
"No?" He stepped closer, close enough that I could smell sandalwood and something darker. "Then why are you standing here with me instead of lying beneath him?"
The crude words should have scandalized me. Instead, they sent heat spiraling through my body in ways I didn't want to examine.
"I... I needed time to think."
"You needed an excuse." His gaze never wavered from mine. "Because despite everything you've been told, despite everything you think you should want, he doesn't call to the part of you that's finally waking up."
Before I could respond, before I could even process what he'd said, he turned and disappeared down the corridor with that fluid grace that made him seem more shadow than man.
I stood there in the empty hallway, my heart pounding and my mind reeling.
In my hand, the small mirror felt suddenly warm, as if it had absorbed some of the heat from our encounter.
He was wrong, he had to be wrong.
Prince Luka was everything I should want, everything I'd been raised to desire in a husband. Charming, powerful, willing to make me his queen.
But as I stood there gripping Rios's mirror, one question echoed in my mind with devastating clarity: If Luka was everything I should want, why did walking away from him feel like the first honest choice I'd made since arriving in Aurelion?