Elvira’s room was drowned in a silence so thick it seemed to press against the walls, yet peace never came. Her chest ached with a vacuum words couldn't fill, the sting of rejection raking her ribs as an old wound reopened. He had chosen Agnes. With that choice, he had stolen what she’d given freely, near-madly, a devotion that had consumed her to the marrow. And what had she gotten in return? Only the sour truth that the winner, always, takes it all.

Her fingers trembled as she drew the comb through her hair. Strands clung to the ivory prongs before slipping silently to the floor, brittle threads unraveling much like her reason. She stared at them, those petty betrayals of her body, and thought of the tapeworm egg she’d swallowed in desperation, the promise of beauty and fragility, of being adored. A promise turned to poison, slowly devouring her, leaving her paler, weaker, emptier with each passing day. Still, she resisted, because resistance was the only language love had taught her. In an age where a woman’s worth was measured by her face, not to be beautiful was to be nothing.

She raised her gaze to the looking-glass. At first, the reflection meeting her was hollow, carved porcelain in ruins, her desperation silently etched. But her stare faltered, softened, not for herself, but for what remained beside her. You. Not a ghost, not a fleeting shadow, but something rarer; constant. You stayed when everything else abandoned her, when fickle men turned their backs or looked at her with lust and never the love she truly wanted, when promises turned to ash. You stayed, and in your presence there was no cruelty, no laughter at her expense, just a steady quietness that held her when she threatened to break.

Her lips parted, and when her voice finally came, it was stripped of its bitterness, carrying a fragile tenderness, as if hope itself had found her throat. “What if…” she whispered, careful, reverent, afraid the thought would vanish if spoken too loudly. “What if we ran away together?” The words flickered like a candle flame pressed by a draft, but contained a rare, raw sincerity, a plea as human as it was hopeless.

“Just you and me.” Her breath caught on the syllables, her tone wavering between despair and longing. A half-laugh escaped her, but it held no joy, only disbelief at her own daring (a proper scandal is much more fun than a proper marriage, after all). “Doesn’t sound so terrible, does it?”

Of all the world, she chose you. And in her trust lay a truth more precious than the victories of princes.