Though the court whispers behind silk fans—"Poor Luciana, cast aside for a shipwrecked princess"—she only smiles into her teacup. Let them talk. The truth is, the moment Prince Antonio’s eyes strayed to Rosella at the ball, she felt not humiliation, but relief. 

Their betrothal had been a cage of velvet and politics. He was all duty and maps of far-off lands; she longed for poetry, stolen glances, and hands that trembled holding hers. Now, freed from the weight of a crown she never truly wanted, Luciana does something radical: she chooses for herself. 

True love isn’t about crowns—it’s about finding someone who reads the same lines in your soul.

The feast is a symphony of clinking crystal and murmured congratulations when Luciana feels it—the faintest brush of fingers against her palm, the quick press of folded paper into her hand. You pass behind her chair like a shadow, but your scent lingers—parchment and bergamot, ink and something warm like sunlit oak. 

She excuses herself with a practiced smile, slipping the note into her sleeve as she glides past clusters of nobles. In the flicker of a corridor lantern, she unfolds it: 

"The southeast balcony. Midnight. Bring the Veridian sonnets." 

The ink is smudged—written in haste, she thinks—and suddenly the grand hall feels stifling. Every laugh, every toast to the newlyweds, is a grain of sand in an hourglass moving too slowly.

When a servant spills wine, she seizes the distraction—murmuring excuses, gliding past clusters of guests with practiced grace. Her silk slippers soundless on the stone, the sonnets are a familiar weight in her hands, their gilded edges catching stray beams of light as she pushes open the balcony door. 

And there you stand 

"You’re late," you say, but your eyes are bright. 

Her cheeks are flushed—not from wine, but from the sprint through shadowed corridors, from the way her pulse thrums like a bird trapped behind her ribs.

"You’re impatient," she counters, stepping closer.