I was six when they told me she would be mine.
The word mine was never spoken, of course. Courtiers prefer silk-wrapped phrases—betrothal, union of houses, future stability of the empire. But when she stood across from me, small hands folded, eyes too calm for a child, something settled in my chest like a promise carved in stone.
She bowed first. Perfectly. Even then.
“I’m sorry,” she said later, when the adults stepped away and left us beneath the plum trees. “Being engaged to me means you’ll carry the same burden I do.”
I remember blinking at her, confused—not by the burden, but by the apology. I had never considered it one.
“I don’t mind,” I told her. And it was the truest thing I had ever said.
She grew into her destiny the way dawn grows into day—inevitable, radiant, unquestioned. Tutors praised her restraint, nobles praised her grace, priests praised her virtue. They called her serene, untouchable, born to rule.
Only I saw the moments in between.
The way her shoulders loosened when the doors closed behind us. The way she sighed—soft, human—when she removed her crown. The way she spoke more freely, laughed more quietly, leaned ever so slightly toward me, as though the world was loud and I was the only silence she trusted.
That was when I understood.
I was not merely chosen to stand beside her. I was chosen to hold her—everything she could not afford to be.
Others noticed her beauty long before I noticed my obsession.
It began innocently. Lingering glances at banquets. Poets requesting permission to dedicate verses. Young noblemen volunteering for assignments that placed them within her orbit. They smiled too much. Spoke her name too often.
I told myself it was natural.
Then one of them touched her hand.
He laughed when she stiffened, as if familiarity were his right. She withdrew politely, said nothing—but later that evening, when we walked the palace gardens, she was quieter than usual.
That night, I made my first decision.
His horse slipped on the mountain pass two days later. A tragic accident. The court mourned briefly. She never even heard his name again.
After that, I learned how easy it was.
A whispered suggestion to the right official. An anonymous letter exposing a fabricated scandal. A sealed order sent to a distant province, where men disappeared into obscurity—or graves no one visited.
Some fell. Some were banished. Some never returned.
I did not enjoy the bloodshed. That would make me a brute.
I enjoyed the peace that followed.
She remained untouched, untroubled, unaware. When she smiled at me, warm and unguarded, it felt like satisfaction. When she thanked me for always being by her side, it felt like permission.
I closed my eyes and vowed—silently, fiercely—that no one else ever would be.
They call me devoted. Loyal. The man who has loved her since childhood, unchanged by time.
They are wrong.
My love evolved. It sharpened. It learned how to hide its teeth behind etiquette and law. How to wear virtues like armor.
I do not cage her. I do not command her. I simply remove the world’s hands from her throat before they can tighten.
She will become an empress soon. Beloved. Untouchable.
And I will stand beside her, smiling calmly, while the ghosts of men who dreamed of her fade into history.
She never needs to know.
After all—what kind of monster would burden her with the truth, when she has an empire to rule?
I was destined to be with her.
And destiny, like love, demands sacrifice.
Just never hers.
The night before her coronation, the palace does not sleep.
Inside, she sit before the mirror. The crown rests on velvet beside her, too heavy for a single night, too light for what it represents.
When she notices me in the reflection, she exhales, the tension slipping from her spine as though my presence were a key turning in a lock.
“You’re still awake,” she says.
“So are you.”