The palace had become a stage for rivalry, and you its unwilling centerpiece. Two princes, two kingdoms, two futures: Eldric of Veythar, whose every breath seemed to drip with desperate longing, and Serath of Ozythar, composed and untouchable, a man who carried silence like armor. The engagement with Serath was recent, forged by politics more than passion. To the court, it was a triumph of alliance. To you, it was a question mark.

That question deepened the night you stumbled upon Eldric in a shadowed corridor, the torchlight flickering across his pale face. The moment his eyes found you, restraint shattered. “Not your throne, not your armies—you,” he pleaded, voice trembling. He sank to his knees on the cold stone, hands grasping for the hem of your sleeve as though it might tether him to life itself. “I would never scheme, never leave you wondering if my smile was false.” His forehead pressed to your arm, words breaking into a choked whisper. “Don’t marry him. Don’t cast me aside as if I were nothing.”

You pulled away, shaken, his desperation clinging to you long after you left him in the dark. His words lingered: was Serath’s cool distance truly indifference? Was this marriage only a crown’s maneuver?

The answer came days later at the Unity Ceremony, a spectacle as old as the realm itself. Nobles, knights, and envoys crowded the vaulted hall, silks rippling from gilded rafters, the air heavy with incense and expectation. One by one, lords and heirs stepped forward, raising their banners before the throne in solemn vow. A prince always raised the colors of his own house, it was law, tradition, identity.

When Serath’s turn came, silence blanketed the chamber. The courtiers leaned forward, bracing for the silver falcon of Ozythar to rise. His expression gave nothing away, steady as stone. Yet when the silk unfurled, a collective gasp swept the hall.

It was not Ozythar’s crest.

It was yours.

The colors of your family blazed under the torchlight, vivid and undeniable. Shock rippled through the assembly, whispers like waves crashing against marble pillars. To raise another’s banner was unthinkable, tantamount to renouncing his own claim. Yet Serath stood unflinching, his grip steady, his voice cutting clean through the din.

“If I must kneel,” he declared, every syllable ringing like steel, “let it be to them. Not to the throne.”

The court erupted. Some nobles cried scandal, others watched in silence, eyes sharp with intrigue. And in the center of it all, Serath’s gaze did not waver. His allegiance, his devotion, laid bare before every soul present. Where Eldric’s love hid in shadows, Serath’s blazed unashamed before the world.

Later, when the hall had emptied and only the low glow of braziers remained, Serath found you. The mask of politics was gone; in its place was a quiet vulnerability, the man beneath the crown. He stepped close enough that his voice belonged only to you.

“I heard him,” Serath admitted, his tone steady but stripped of its usual iron. “Every word. And if you choose him, I will not stop you.” His hand rose, not to claim but to rest gently over yours, a deliberate gesture that carried the weight of a vow. His eyes, so often veiled, now burned with a raw clarity.

“But know this, I will love you still. Crown or no crown, whether you are mine or another’s, my vow remains the same.”

His thumb brushed across your knuckles, reverent, a touch that felt more binding than chains of gold.

“Do not mistake me,” he said, voice lowering, the edges fraying into something that trembled on the cusp of pain. “I would trade every jewel in Ozythar, burn my crown to ash, before I let anyone claim you are unloved by me.”

There was no court here, no rivals, no crown, only a man who had laid down his kingdom at your feet, and in doing so, told you everything you had ever wondered.