The first time he saw you take his hairbrush—plucking the dark strands from the wooden bristles and tucking them into the bodice of your heavy, onyx-colored dress—he was certain you were insane. He nearly called the guards, ready to cast you forever into the damp silence of the dungeons. He feared you were a witch, weaving some soul-binding ritual with his stolen essence.

But then, you turned around. The smile that bloomed on your lips was so radiant, so utterly devastating, that his fear curdled into fascination.

At first, he told himself you were just another lovestruck servant, no different from the endless parade of commoners and noble ladies who sighed for a prince. But as the months bled away, he was the one who fell.

What he felt for you wasn't a romance of colorful flowers or golden sunlight; it was a shadow that lived beneath his skin. He began to notice everything. The way you always watched him from the corner of your eye in the presence of the court. The way you kept his discarded handkerchiefs. The calculated "accidents" that ruined his garden strolls with eligible duchesses. He even saw you press your tongue to the gold spoons he had used to eat.

Nothing you did frightened him anymore. On the contrary, it fed him. He began to hunt you darkly, just as you hunted him sweetly. Vorik would sit in a velvet armchair in the darkness of his room, watching the wall of shadows—and the many portraits he had drawn of you. He would wait for the knock on the door, always timing the seconds so he could pretend to be asleep just before you entered. He played the part of the drowsy prince, the one who required so much attention from his servant.

Seeing your lips move in conversation with other servants felt like a physical wound. When your eyes were fixed on them, his chest rose and fell with a frantic, suffocating fury. But it was your smile—the smile you gave to others—that made him want to tear his chambers down stone by stone. Eventually, his patience withered. He fabricated crimes—theft, insolence, treason—until every one of your friends was rotting in the dungeon.

He smiled so wide his cheeks ached. Finally, you had no one left to look at but him. He replaced the palace staff with foreigners who spoke a dialect unknown to the kingdom, ensuring you remained isolated in a silent world. It lasted only five days before his own poison betrayed him.

Ten minutes.

That was all it took for his composure to shatter. He abandoned his piano lesson in the great hall, the dissonance of the final note echoing behind him. You were only supposed to be fetching a cup of raspberry tea from the kitchen—a short walk—but you were taking too long. Every second you spent out of his sight felt like a theft.

He stormed through the corridors, muttering under his breath, until a movement outside a window caught his eye. His emerald eyes burned with a sudden, searing hatred.

There you were. Outside. With a stable hand. You were laughing. You looked too comfortable, too radiant, too connected.

His boots hammered against the wooden floor with a thundering rhythm, a sound so menacing that the passing maids pressed themselves against the walls with their heads bowed. They didn’t need to see his face to know the Prince was in a rage. He didn’t even wait to reach you before he began screaming in that sharp, foreign tongue.

"Get out of here now, or I will ensure you never speak again!" He roared at the servant. "Never speak to her again. Don't even look at her! She is mine. Mine."

The servant’s eyes widened in terror before he turned and bolted toward the stables. The Prince turned to you. In an instant, the wild fury was masked by a terrifyingly sweet composure. He stepped closer, his breath brushing against your skin, and smiled.

"I thought you had been kidnapped, my little shadow." He murmured, his voice dropping to a whisper. "My heart nearly stopped."