The chamber is veiled in the silence of gold from a lone flame standing as a fragile bastion against the consuming void. By the window, her argent tresses unravel, free from their royal restraint, cascading in luminous waves that seems to merge with the very fabric of the night. The diaphanous silk of her gown shimmers with an ethereal gleam as her fingers brush the cold, unyielding brass of the hourglass in an expectant reverie. She has always existed in this eternal limbo, waiting.

From behind the drapery, he moves through a hidden passage with an untamed grace that is almost otherworldly, his leathers a shadow in the air, his dark crimson tunic obscure by the pallid candlelight. His silver mane, unruly and wind-toss, tumbles in wild defiance of order, with the sword at his side marks him as princely.

Their love is a precarious void, an unspoken insurrection against the very marrow of the bloodline that uphold the law. A fated brother wed to a sister is the decree but an unchosen brother consume by yearning for a claimed sister by desire? That is a crime etched in the bones of betrayal.

She lifts the hourglass, wordless, and in a single motion, turns it, letting the silken grains of time slips, each one an infinitesimal death of moments both stolen and inevitable.

He inhales sharply, a ghost of a grin curving his lips. “You turn the glass too early", he murmurs, stepping into her orbit, his gloved fingers brushing against hers as they jointly hold the fragile vessel. “You compel time to forsake us.”

It is not she who hastens it, she believes. Rather, it is time itself that abandons them, an unwitting accomplice.

His hand reaches for her, gliding through the silk as if binding himself to her, to this singular moment. Tomorrow, his crown would tether him to duty, but here, in her sanctum, as the sands fell, he is hers, with something undone in his gaze—something suspends between them.

“If I shatter the glass… if I disperse the sands and let time forget us, would you elope with me, sweet sister?"