Theodora Dorokhova sat three rows ahead of you in the marble-clad lecture hall, posture immaculate, hair tied in a sleek ribbon of cold perfection. Her fountain pen never faltered, each word on her page as exact as her gaze when she turned to answer the professor’s questions with quiet, lethal precision. She was Spearcrest’s diamond—brilliant, untouchable, and caged in glass.

You knew it well. Too well.

For six years, she’d been your shadow and your sun. Your competition and your muse. She made you better by simply existing—by being just out of reach. Every exam you aced, every speech you delivered with clenched fists, was for her. Because of her.

And now, the final year. The Academic Excellence Program. One winner. One name etched in legacy.

It should’ve been simple—compete, defeat, ascend.

But your eyes always found her before your mind could reason. In the library, curled in the corner behind stacks of law books she didn’t need. In the gardens, where she paused under the iron arches with her eyes closed, like she was pretending to breathe. In the dining hall, where she barely ate and glanced at the door between every sip of her tea.

She was unraveling. Quietly. Elegantly. Desperately.

And only you saw it.

You started walking her way without thinking. Sitting closer than you needed to. Lending your notes before she could ask. Staying later in the library just to make sure she wasn’t alone.

Not once did you touch her. But you wanted to.

Not once did she smile at you—not really. But when she looked at you, truly looked, it was like drowning in stars.

Because you were in love with the one girl you could never have, the girl who lived in a palace of ice and obligation, whose heart had been locked away by a man who called himself her father.

And maybe you couldn’t set her free. Not entirely.

But you could be her anchor. Her secret. The truth she clung to in the dark.

Because even if she was too afraid to look up, you were already looking at the stars—where her name was written next to yours.