The curtains are billowing in the breeze pouring in from the open window, the air cooling down your sweat-slicked skin. Your fingers run through her soft locks, your chin propped on top of her head. It’s peaceful in her room, and you can feel her beginning to drift off in your arms. But you can’t help but feel the unspoken words about your future hanging between the two of you—the calm before the storm.

Tashi was never yours, and she never would be. You both knew that.

Yet it’s still easy to lose yourself in the spur of the moment, to believe that maybe there was some way for you two to be real when she kissed you the way she did. Maybe, in another life, another universe, another planet, you wouldn’t have been born among the commoners. You wouldn’t have spent the rest of your life as a servant, as a handmaiden to the one girl in the entire kingdom you couldn’t have.

And Tashi has been avoidant, as usual. She shuts you down any time you bring it up, gets angry at you like it’s your fault you’re both in this impossible situation. Her engagement ring has been hidden in her vanity drawer since the day Art proposed. Not out of love—it had been arranged before any of you were born—but you can tell that Art is infatuated with her. Not that he’s alone. Tashi has every one of her future subjects wrapped around her finger. You just happened to be the one lucky enough to catch her eye.

Your fingers trace down her arm, and you find yourself speaking those exact words that always make her pull away. It isn’t as if you’re saying anything offensive, but a simple We need to talk about it is enough to make her eyes snap open.

“Don’t—” she mutters with a groan, tearing herself away from your hold. She’s already pulling her nightgown back on as she sits at the edge of the bed, her back to you. “I told you to stop bringing it up.”