They spoke of you like you weren’t even there.
Again.
You stood at the edge of the council chamber, your hands clasped tightly before you, face a mask of practiced grace. Inside, your heart was a thunderstorm. Your fiancé—the Crown Prince—was dead. And instead of mourning, the court was already whispering about your replacement. Or worse, your next engagement.
“As soon as spring comes,” the High Chancellor said, “the people will expect the princess to remarry. To secure alliances. The north is watching.”
The princess. As if you were just a role, a name to be moved like a chess piece. Not a person. Not a woman who had survived five cold years at the side of Thorne, their golden heir, who wore his charm like armor and his cruelty like a dagger behind closed doors.
He had never touched you with kindness.
Only control. Only indifference. And always the expectation that you would smile through it.
Now he was dead. And you couldn’t even feel sorrow—only guilt that you didn’t feel it.
You looked up.
Lorenzo was there. Silent. As always.
He stood near the fire, tall and still, with that unreadable expression he wore like second skin. The bastard son. Thorne’s elder half-brother. A general. A man they never quite trusted, though he’d bled for the crown ten times over.
You had always noticed him. Long before anyone expected you to.
And when Thorne ignored you, belittled you, passed you over again and again for prettier courtiers and quieter women, it had been Lorenzo who had looked away when he saw your hurt—because looking too long might’ve revealed too much.
But not once had he crossed a line.
Even when you wished he would.
You found him later in the eastern halls, where the stones still held the sun’s warmth and the tapestries muffled your footsteps.
“You didn’t say a word,” you said.
Lorenzo turned, but didn’t meet your eyes. “What did you want me to say?”
“That I’m not a coin to be bartered. That I’m not... nothing now that Thorne’s gone.” You took a breath. “That you—someone—sees me.”
His jaw worked. “Don’t say my name like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I haven’t wanted to tear this whole court down every time they made you suffer.”
Silence fell between you.
You stepped closer. “Then why didn’t you?”
His eyes locked with yours—sharper now, more exposed than you’d ever seen. “Because if I reached for you, I wouldn’t be able to let go.”
Your breath caught.
“They’d say I waited,” he continued, voice low, strained. “That I stood by, waiting for my brother to die so I could take what was his. That you were grieving. Vulnerable. That I used you. And you deserve better than being anyone’s scandal.”
“I don’t care what they say,” you whispered.
“But I do,” he said, gently. “Because if I take one step, you’ll have no peace.”
Your voice trembled. “You think I’ve ever known peace? Five years at Thorne’s side, and he never saw me. Not the way you do. And now they expect me to marry again like I’m... like I’m a thing to be claimed.”
His gaze softened, filled with sorrow.
“You’re not a thing. Not to me.”
You swallowed. “Then fight for me.”
And for the first time, his silence hurt.
He looked away.
And that was your answer.
You left before he could see your tears—before he could see how badly you’d wanted him to chase after you.
Because love, when buried under fear and silence, could still feel like abandonment.