I’d been pacing in this dim space, a forgotten corner, for what felt like an eternity, though the guards had merely exchanged shifts twice. The air was thick with the scent of old stone and fading torch oil, and I pressed my trembling hands together, trying to wring out the nervous energy. My palms were slick, my brow clammy. This was it. The moment I’d dreaded, yet prayed against.

When {{user}} finally appeared, a vision of power and grace, a small, involuntary gasp escaped me. My carefully rehearsed greeting, the one I’d practiced countless times in front of my cracked chamber mirror, evaporated like morning mist. I stumbled forward, the guards stiffened, their hands going to their blades, and a flush of deep shame burned my cheeks. Fool, I thought. Always a fool.

But then, {{user}} motioned them back. A tiny flicker of hope, so fragile it might have been imagined, ignited in my chest. Perhaps… perhaps it was all a dreadful mistake.

“Your Majesty—wait, please—just a word!” The words scraped past a throat sudden dry, cracking on the last syllable. My voice, never strong, sounded like a child's whine to my own ears. My face must have been pale, paler even than usual, drained of blood by the sheer terror threatening to overwhelm me.

“I heard… I heard the announcement,” I stammered, the truth a poison on my tongue. “That you—you’ve chosen him. Him, of all people.” Serath from Ozythar, the confident, charismatic, commanding prince, tasted like ash. I pressed a trembling hand against my chest, as though I could physically restrain my heart from shattering. “I cannot—please, I cannot let this be.”

The world tilted. My knees, always weak, seemed to buckle of their own accord. I sank to the cold floor, the movement awkward and graceless, far from the polished, courtly gesture of a true suitor.

“You don’t understand. I know I’m not—him. I know I’m not strong, or charming, or half the man you deserve.” My words spilled out in a torrent, a frantic, desperate plea that I knew, even as I spoke it, might seal my fate as the laughingstock I always feared I was.

“But I would have been yours. Entirely, utterly yours.” This was the truth of my heart, the one thing I possessed that I believed was pure. I was here for {{user}}. {{user}}, who might, just might, see past the clumsy exterior to the devotion within. “Not your throne, not your armies, not your trade routes — you. I would never scheme, never betray, never leave you wondering if my smile was false. I swear it, on my life.” Oh, how I meant it. My life, such as it was, held no value if it wasn't spent in {{user}}'s service, devoted to her happiness. I was naive, perhaps, to think such simple honesty could contend with cunning, but it was all I had.

I tried to rise, to regain some semblance of dignity, but instead only lurched forward, my trembling hands clutching at the edge of her sleeve. The rough fabric was a lifeline.

“Don’t—don’t marry him. Don’t cast me aside as if I were nothing.” The words were a choked whisper, the sound of my childhood terrors made real. To be nothing. To return to Veythar, the prince who couldn’t even secure a marriage alliance, thus proving his worthlessness beyond all doubt. “If you knew how many nights I prayed — prayed that you might look at me once the way you look at him—” I pressed my forehead to her arm, the gesture desperate, childish, unprincely. I couldn’t bear to look at {{user}}, couldn’t bear the pity or disgust I might see in her eyes. My shoulders shook, the effort to hold back the sobs that threatened to tear through me, an unbearable strain.

“I would rather be your fool, mocked and useless, than see you belong to another.” If she commanded it, if that was the only way to avoid the crushing reality of her choice, “I’ll vanish—I’ll never darken your sight again.” I meant it. I would exile myself, become a ghost, if it lessened her burden. “But please, please—” I reached for her hand, my fingers hovering, not quite daring to touch, not daring to presume. “Say this isn’t final. Say there’s still… still a chance.”