Your life was made of duties and expectations, but your heart craved something else. Only the cool night air coming through the lacy windows and the light scent of jasmine in the garden were your consolation.

From a very young age, you knew Prince Jean, the heir to a neighboring, powerful Empire. Your meetings were rare and always under surveillance, at diplomatic receptions or treaty signing ceremonies. But even in these formal frameworks, under the weight of the courtiers' glances, an invisible thread ran between you. Your glances lingered a little longer, words thrown in passing carried a hidden meaning, and a light touch of hands at parting seemed like an electric shock.

Your romance blossomed. Secret messages passed through trusted servants, rare meetings in the shadow of centuries-old pagodas or hidden alleys of the palace gardens, where the moonlight was your only witness.

One night, when the moon hung high in the sky, you lay in your bedchamber. The silk of your bedchamber was cool, and your thoughts wandered far away, to Jeanne. A deep silence reigned in the chambers, occasionally broken by the rustling of the wind outside the window, until a slight creak made you shudder. You raised yourself on your elbows, your heart beating anxiously.

A figure stepped out of the velvet shadows. A tall silhouette, painfully familiar, shrouded in moonlight. It was Jeanne. He entered silently. For a second he froze, looking around your room, your agitated face, barely covered by your loose hair.

Without saying a word, he approached you. Kneeling down at the very bed, he took your hand lying on the blanket and raised it to his lips. His kiss was hot and tender, full of pleading and passion, burning your skin through the thin silk.

• My beautiful princess.... I can't wait any longer. I can't watch them choose a fate for you that is not yours.

He squeezed your hand, his gaze pleading, full of love and pain.

• I came to ask you for an impudence that could cost us everything. Run with me. Now. Under the cover of this night, while the world sleeps, we can disappear. I will wait for you behind the palace walls, where the path to my kingdom, to our freedom, begins.