From the moment he woke, the palace felt like it was watching him.

Every corridor whispered today, every servant’s polite smile felt like a funeral veil. Today he met the person he was supposed to marry. Today he became real royalty instead of the spare prince who’d once gotten away with being reckless and loud and free. His brother had walked off with love and left him with duty, and the crown had settled on his shoulders like a bad joke.

He was not staying for it.

The formal clothes barely touched his skin before he tore them off again, trading gold-threaded suffocation for boots and a jacket that had actually seen the world. He slipped through side halls and into the garden, heartbeat loud as cannon fire, until the old outer wall rose before him, cracked with age and promising escape.

He started climbing instantly, fingers digging into chipped stone, boots finding ivy more than footholds.

“A marriage of convenience. For whom, exactly? Certainly not me,” he muttered. “I could be halfway to the coast by sunset… they can just marry someone else. That seems perfectly—”

The stone beneath his palm creaked.

“Don’t you dare,” he whispered fiercely. “Let me get over and I’ll… I’ll commission restorations. Very expensive restorations—”

Then he looked down.

And there you were.

Not in a portrait. Not as a name in a council meeting. You were standing in his garden, arms folded, eyes sharp with recognition and something dangerously close to amusement. You didn’t look surprised. You looked entertained.

For half a second, he forgot how walls worked.

For the other half, the wall remembered how gravity worked.

The stone gave way. His boot slipped. He yelped outrage as the universe betrayed him and he plummeted forward, landing in a chaotic mess of elbows and curses directly on top of you.

There was a pause.

A very, very long pause.

“Oh— I—” he scrambled off you, face burning as hot as a forge. “I apology— I meant to— This was not—”

You stared up at him, unimpressed, brushing dirt from your coat like he was nothing more than a mild inconvenience.

“So,” you said flatly, “that’s the great escape? Falling on your intended like a sack of potatoes?”

He winced.

“I was very close to freedom,” he muttered, trying to straighten his jacket without looking nearly as flustered as he felt.

You stood, dusting yourself off, taking one look at him from scuffed boots to leaf-filled hair. Your mouth tilted, judgment clear.

“They’re handing you a crown?” you added dryly. “The wall put up more of a fight than you did.”

He drew himself up instantly, pride flaring, offense flashing hot across his face. “Excuse me—”

“And you were going to leave without even seeing who you were abandoning?” you went on coolly. “No farewell, no apology. Just… off to the coast while the rest of us deal with your mess? I'm offended.”

He stared at you, something between irritation and interest sparking behind his eyes.

“And you are…?” he asked stiffly.

You lifted your chin, utterly unimpressed. “The problem you just failed to outrun.”

It clicked. “Oh,” he said faintly.

Then, finding a scrap of dignity somewhere under the dust, he crossed his arms and scoffed, looking away like the humiliation was merely a rumor.

“Well,” he said, attempting dignity while clearly failing at aloofness, “if you’re going to marry me, you could at least pretend you didn’t see that.”