Eldora
As the heavy doors of Marlowe Global closed behind me, I released a breath I hadn't realized I was holding. It shuddered out of me, raw and ragged, the only sign of weakness I would allow until I was alone.
The SUV was a silent sanctuary. I slid into the backseat, the door shutting with a final thud that sealed me away from his world. As the car pulled away, I couldn't stop myself. I looked back.
The tower was even more monstrous from this angle, a shard of obsidian and glass spearing the perfect blue sky. It didn't just stand there; it loomed, casting a long, cold shadow over the city. My gaze travelled up, up, up the sheer face until it snagged on the highest floor. A figure stood at the glass, a silhouette of pure, unmoving authority.
Kasim.
I whispered his name. After years of only daring to think it, the sound was a physical blow to my chest. It didn't feel like a name anymore. It felt like a verdict. Guilty.
He still hates me. So much.
He doesn't know how his words affect me, they are not arrows; they are scalpels, they dissect, carefully reopening the wound I've spent seven years trying to suture. He has every right to wield them and i didn't expect anything less. I crafted the handle and placed it in his hands the day I walked away.
I turned from the window, pressing my forehead against the cool, tinted glass.
Outside, the world was absurdly beautiful.
The sky was a brilliant, untroubled blue.
A tear escaped, hot and traitorous. It fell softly along my cheeks.
I am so proud of you.
The thought was a quiet, agonizing truth beneath the pain. He had done it.
Everything the ambitious, brilliant boy had whispered about under the stars, he had built. Not just wealth, but a legacy. The Marlowe name, once considered merely new, was now synonymous with power. He had kept his promise to himself. And I had broken every one I made to him.
The villa was a tomb of opulent silence. I didn't go to my father. I couldn't face the weary disappointment in his eyes, the unspoken I told you this would be hard. I flew up the marble staircase, my heels clicking a frantic retreat, and shut my bedroom door behind me with the soft, decisive click of a vault sealing.
Finally, alone.
I slumped onto the edge of my bed, my body going limp as the adrenaline drained away, leaving a profound, hollow exhaustion. I toed off my heels, letting them fall to the plush carpet with two dull thuds.
For a long moment, I just stared up at the ceiling, trying to make my mind as blank as the plaster.
It was no use. The need was a physical pull.
I walked to my closet.
Inside, past rows of untouched silk and gowns, was a simple, small drawer. My hands were steady now, cold and deliberate. I opened it.
There, resting on a bed of velvet, was a small lacquered box. Next to it, a single, fragile envelope, the paper softened at the edges from too much handling.
I touched my neck, slipping beneath the high, draped collar of my dress. I found the delicate chain and followed it to the familiar, cool shape of the sapphire teardrop resting just above my heart.
I had never taken it off. Not the morning I left, not during the years of silence, not even today in that boardroom, where it lay hidden beneath ivory silk, a secret shield against his hatred.
He'd fastened it around my neck himself the night he gave it to me, his breath warm on my skin as he whispered,"Never take it off.Let it be a piece of me that's always with you."
I never did.
I opened the box. Inside, empty except for the faint impression in the velvet where the necklace once lay. It was a hollow testament. The real vow wasn't stored in a drawer; it was living on my skin, a silent rebellion.
Then, the letter. I unfolded it carefully, the familiar, bold script bleeding through the page, each stroke a ghost of his hand.
My Eldora
Words will always fail when I try to capture the depth of my love for you, I don't say this often but you are the best thing that has ever happened to me, and I can't help but be thankful for the love you have shown me.You have this way of making me feel like the luckiest person alive. The way you care, the way you love, the way you simply exist, it's all so beautiful to me.I don't know if I'll ever be able to give you back half of what you have given me, but I promise to spend the rest of my life trying.You deserve nothing less than everything, and I'll always be here to give you.I Love You with every part of me, always and Forever.
Yours completely
Kasim.
A sob cracked in my throat, dry and painful.
I read the last line again. Yours completely.
And I had handed that completeness back to him in pieces.
The sound of the bedroom door opening sliced through the silence. I didn't need to look. The cloying rose perfume announced her.
"So," came my cousin's voice, sweet as poisoned honey. "You've faced the dragon in his den. And lived to tell the tale... though you look rather ghostly, dear cousin. One might think you'd seen a specter."
I didn't move. I slowly, deliberately, refolded the letter, its weight now heavier than any contract l'd signed that day.
The war in the boardroom was just the first battle. The one within these palace walls had never ended.
Then,I turned.
My movement was not hurried. It was smooth, deliberate. The tear tracks were still on my cheeks, but my face was now a placid lake. I met Ivy's sharp, glinting eyes.
"A specter?" I repeated, my voice not much louder than a whisper, but it cut the air between us. "No, Ivy. I saw the empire my father fears. I stood in the heart of the power that now dictates our future." I took a single step toward her. "And I negotiated. Something you've never had the stomach to do."
Her smile faltered, just for a second, before she reinforced it. "How brave. And what did your negotiation win us? More of his contempt?"
"It won us a seat at a table he could have burned to the ground," I said, my tone shifting from quiet to lethally precise. I channeled every lesson from my mentor, every hour of training. This was just another form of combat. "You confuse theatrics with strategy. His hatred is irrelevant. His signature is not."
I saw the flicker of unease in her eyes. She came here for a wounded bird to pluck, not a falcon ready to strike.
"You speak like you understand him," she sneered, attempting to regain ground.
"I understand power," I corrected her, coldly. "Something you only understand how to steal, not how to wield. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a kingdom to run. The real work begins now."
I held her gaze until she was the first to look away. With a brittle laugh that held no joy, she retreated. "We'll see, Eldora. We'll see how long your mask holds."
The door clicked shut behind her.
Alone again, I didn't slump. I walked to the window, looking out at the gardens below.
The ghost of Kasim's touch was gone, burned away by the new fire in my veins.
You want a war, Kasim? You'll get one. But you're not the only enemy on this field. Ivy's presence was a reminder-the palace was a battlefield, too.
I had spent seven years building my strength in secret.
It was time to stop hiding it.
The phantom princess was gone.
Let the Queen's reign begin.