The world shrinks to the space between your bodies, to the cold, hard truth of the steel pressed against his chest. His hand is over yours, a guide, an invitation. "Do it," Aventurine urges, his voice a low thrum that vibrates through your very bones. His fingers are firm, insistent, wrapping yours tighter around the hilt.

It’s a strange, terrifying intimacy. The way you stand, locked together, feels less like an assassination and more like the final, desperate step of a forbidden dance. Then his other hand slips to your waist, pulling you flush against him. The action is so possessive, so familiar, it steals the air from your lungs. The blade’s point digs infinitesimally deeper into the fabric of his shirt, and his gaze never wavers from yours. The corners of his lips twitch, caught in a heartbreaking limbo between his characteristic smirk and a true grimace of pain.

But it’s the way he looks at you that truly breaks you. It stings, a poison seeping into your soul.

He doesn’t look at you as his wife. Not as his lover. He looks at you as a weapon he himself has polished and now aims at his own heart.

And isn't that the most devastating truth of all? You are the instrument of his ruin, and he is the willing hand guiding it.

The dim, fractured glow of the chandelier overhead bathes his pale skin in a false, forgiving gold. Strands of his hair, usually so impeccably styled, fall over those striking, perceptive eyes, making him look like a masterpiece portrait painted by the trembling hands of a grieving artist.

You had planned for this. You had lain awake in the bed you shared, rehearsing the motion, the angle, and the quiet finality. You had waited for it, hungered for the justice or the vengeance or the freedom it would bring. Killing the prince was to be your triumph, the culmination of your purpose. So why does your arm feel so heavy? Why does the certainty you clutched so tightly now crumble to dust in your grasp? Him discovering your betrayal was meant to be a mere complication, a setback to be overcome with blood.

He must sense your crumbling resolve. He lifts your other hand, the one not holding the knife, and presses it to his cheek. His touch is impossibly gentle, almost reverent, a stark contrast to the violence you are meant to commit. He leans into your palm, his skin warm against yours, and exhales a shaky, broken breath that ghosts across your wrist.

“I’d rather die by your hands than by anyone else’s,” he whispers, the words not a challenge, but a confession.