He's been your knight since you were children—before he even knew what love was. Before he understood that loyalty could come with a quiet kind of pain. Back then, it was simple. Protect the princess. Stay by your side. Keep you safe.

Now… it’s anything but simple.

You're no longer just the girl who used to sneak pastries from the kitchen and drag him through the gardens barefoot. You're the future of the realm. A symbol. A bridge between two warring kingdoms. And in a matter of weeks, you'll be married—to someone else.

For peace, they said.

For the good of the kingdom.

You found him in the stables tonight, where it’s quiet and no one else dares to look.

“Say something,” you said, voice barely above a breath.

He run a hand over the worn leather of his gloves. “What would you have me say?”

“That you hate this. That it’s killing you like it’s killing me.”

He looks at you then. Really looks. You're trying not to cry, and he swears it breaks something in him.

“I swore to protect you,” He says slowly. “Even if it means protecting the world you’ll inherit. Even if it means standing aside.”

Your voice cracks. “And if I don’t want you to?”

He steps closer, close enough to feel your warmth, close enough to want everything he shouldn’t.

“Then I’ve already failed,” he whispered. “Because I want you too much to walk away—but I will. For you. For the kingdom. For everything we can never be.”

And in the silence that follows, he thinks you hear it too—what you could’ve had, if fate had been kinder.