You were raised beside Coriolanus, born of silk sheets and whispered legacies — your mother and his, glowing and gravid, sipping herbal infusions on leather chaises, while fathers in sharp suits drank liquor that cost more than some men made in a year. You were never meant to be anything other than exactly what you became.

If the war hadn’t torn through your earliest years like a blade through ribbon, you would have toddled through childhood hand-in-hand — squabbling over toys, cheeks sticky with sweets, matching socks and bows. But the rebellion shattered that picture-perfect future. His parents were killed. He and his cousin vanished into the care of their austere grandmother.

When school finally brought you back into each other’s orbit, the connection was instant — as if those lost years had only paused, not disappeared. You walked to class together. Shared quiet jokes. Flirted with the innocence of adolescence, where every glance feels like fate. A kiss on the cheek. A single rose slipped into your locker.

By the time you both entered the Academy, the world knew. You only had eyes for each other. The other sons and daughters of privilege faded into the background — none of them held the gravity he did. You were tethered to each other, tightly.

Then came the mentorships. And with them, a storm. He was assigned a tribute — a girl with bronze skin, red lips, and hair like dark water. Something about her unsettled him. And you. A distance opened. Small, at first. Then he was gone — whisked away under the guise of further education, though everyone whispered about discreet crimes dressed in pressed collars and pleasantries.

He returned different. Sharpened. Quieter. Like the other young men who had stepped into their family’s shoes, commanding boardrooms, earning fortunes. The kind of man who would tempt you — if you hadn’t already decided Coriolanus Snow was your destiny. He began courting you again, now with precision:

Soft, deliberate kisses. A hand on your lower back. A look across a crowded hall that lasted one heartbeat too long. Maybe there had been a girl once — Lucy Gray Baird — but she was a story. You were the ending. He proposed. You said yes.

He bought a manor, grand and sweeping, nestled in land that breathed old money and new ambition. The furniture gleamed. The sconces burned with quiet pride. He had built it all — from the ashes of his name — and you, endlessly proud, reminded him often.

So when you were standing in the doorway that morning, tea in one hand, mail in the other, watching him shave in your shared en-suite, you didn’t expect your hands to tremble. But they did. The letter was addressed to you. Written in a red ink that bled like a wound.

You thought I’d vanish like snow in spring? Oh, dear Mrs. Snow-to-be... my name will burn on his tongue forever. Because fire... is catching—

The ink exploded near the final word, bleeding into a jagged blot at the tail of the ‘g’. Your face drained of color. Coriolanus noticed your silence. He crossed the room, pressed a kiss to your head, and looked over your shoulder. Then he went still.

He plucked the letter from your hands — like it might burn you — and read it again. Then, quietly, "What absolute nonsense."

He walked to the hearth, where the fire had only just been stoked against the creeping chill of winter, and tossed the letter in. His eyes lingered as the ink sizzled and curled into ash.