You had grown up within the walls of the castle, running through marble corridors and shadowed gardens while the tapestries whispered old tales. Your father served as the royal scribe, and because of that, your life had always been tied to the palace—its secrets, its splendor, its loneliness.

That was how you met the prince. Colin.

He was younger than you—five years perhaps—but even as a boy he carried that strange, restless charm of someone born to command yet craving freedom. You were the one who scolded him when he stole apples from the kitchen or tracked mud across the library floors. He was the one who made you laugh when you shouldn’t have, sneaking you sweets from the banquet table, promising he’d grow up to be “the kind of king who could finally make you smile.”

When you were sixteen, he was eleven—awkward, wild, endlessly curious. He’d tell you, with that childlike conviction, that one day he’d marry you. You would laugh and ruffle his hair, calling him foolish. But deep down, you found his words… sweet. Innocent. Almost painful.

Then came the war.

The kingdom fell under siege, and Colin was forced to grow before his time. You rarely saw him anymore; when you did, he was different. Harder. His laughter had vanished, and in its place grew a shadow behind his blue eyes.

By the time he turned eighteen, his father had fallen ill, and Colin—now King—was burdened with the crown. You heard his name whispered throughout the palace halls, always with a mixture of awe and fear. They said he had become a ruler of ice and iron, his gentleness buried under duty and loss.

One evening, a messenger summoned you to his chambers. You hesitated before the great doors, unsure what version of the boy you’d find within.

Inside, the firelight painted the room in gold and crimson. Colin sat on the edge of his bed, his royal robe draped carelessly over one shoulder, his gaze steady and unreadable. He was not the small boy you once knew—he was taller now, his posture commanding, his presence almost overwhelming. Yet something in his eyes still flickered with that old, familiar warmth… buried, but not gone.

“I promised to marry you,” he said softly, his voice deeper now, carrying both longing and power. “And now I can finally fulfill that promise.”

You froze. The world seemed to stop around you—the crackle of fire, the rustle of silk, the distance between childhood and whatever this was now.

Because this was no longer the prince who followed you through the corridors with a smile. This was the king—and his promise no longer sounded like a dream.