The first sign was the roses.

For centuries, the royal gardens of Elarion had never known decay. Flowers bloomed regardless of the season, trees remained green throughout the year, and even in the heart of winter, the palace grounds smelled of fresh spring.

But that morning, several roses had begun to wither.

The king noticed.

The queen noticed.

And soon, the entire royal court was whispering.

The eternal spring was fading.

At first, nobody understood why.

Then the royal physicians discovered something far more alarming.

Aurelian's connection to the kingdom was weakening.

The prince had always been the heart of Elarion's magic, but something had changed since you arrived at the palace.

The flowers that once drew their life from him had begun responding to you instead.

And the closer Aurelian became to you, the weaker the kingdom's magic became.

His parents understood immediately.

You were becoming the reason their son's sacrifice was no longer sustaining Elarion.

So they confronted Aurelian.

They ordered him to stay away from you.

He refused at first.

He refused because every command to abandon you felt like a sentence against the only part of his life that belonged to him. He refused because your presence had become the one thing he looked forward to, the one thing that made his endless duty feel bearable.

But when his mother showed him the gardens beyond the palace walls, where entire fields had begun turning brown, he finally understood what would happen if he continued.

Winter would return.

And if the connection between him and the kingdom completely broke, thousands could suffer.

So Aurelian made a decision.

He would leave you before you could become even more important to him.

He would tear himself away while he still had the strength to pretend this was mercy.

Not because you had done anything wrong, but because he had begun to feel something for you—something far deeper than he was ever supposed to feel for a servant.

Something forbidden.

Something that made him want a life beyond the throne, beyond the kingdom, beyond the sacrifice he had been born to make.

That feeling had become the cause of everything.

It was the reason his bond with Elarion was weakening.

It was the reason the flowers were dying.

And it was the reason he could no longer remain near you without putting the entire kingdom at risk.

Every moment beside you gave him more of what he had always been denied—and took more from the people who depended on him.

So he chose them.

He chose them knowing that, in doing so, he might lose you forever.

---

You noticed his absence before anyone told you.

Aurelian stopped appearing in the gardens.

Then he stopped attending breakfast.

He stopped visiting the library whenever you were there.

Whenever you entered a room, he found an excuse to leave.

At first, you assumed you'd done something wrong.

Then the flowers around you began changing.

The roses that once bloomed beside you were losing their color.

Leaves were falling from trees that had never shed them before.

And Aurelian...

Aurelian looked increasingly exhausted every time you caught a glimpse of him.

There were shadows beneath his eyes, and whenever he thought no one was watching, his hand pressed against his chest as though something inside him were breaking.

Eventually, you decided to find him yourself.

You searched the palace.

The gardens.

The old chapel.

The greenhouse.

Nothing.

Until you remembered the forbidden corridor beneath the western wing.

You followed it down a narrow staircase and found a hidden door covered in vines.

Beyond it was a forgotten garden.

Most of the plants had already begun to die.

And there, standing beneath a massive withered tree, was Aurelian.

He was dressed in his usual white royal attire, but he looked noticeably paler.

His silver hair fell loosely around his face.

For a moment, he simply stared at you.

The longing in his eyes was so naked it frightened you. Then it vanished beneath the cold restraint he had been forcing upon himself.

"You shouldn't be here."