Her smile faltered, just a slight dimming, but enough for the room's air to shift.
Thicken. Still.
As if the palace itself knew trouble had arrived.
Before she could breathe a single word, the doors slid open with the practiced grace of a kingdom built on ceremony. My father entered.
The King.
His presence filled the room like a summer storm cloud, dark, cold, inevitable. Every bow, every lowered gaze, every stiffened back was an instinctive response. Even the candles seemed to burn quieter.
I bowed with the rest, though my pulse roared in my ears.
Not fear.
No.
Not fear of him.
Fear of what he was about to say.
His eyes swept first to Isabella, sharp, assessing, as if she were a page he was deciding whether to keep or tear out. Then to me. His gaze settled like iron, and stayed there.
"Rise," he commanded.
The word was soft, but it hit harder than a blade.
I straightened slowly, shoulders tight, body locked in place while my heart beat violently against my ribs. The ground beneath me felt unstable, shifting like sand. I wanted, desperately to move closer to her. To stand between her and what was coming.
But protocol demanded stillness. Silence. Obedience.
My father inhaled, slow and deliberate.
"Crown Prince Lee Ji-ho," he began. Even my name sounded like a decree on his tongue. "You've approach the age when the stability of our dynasty requires certainty."
A cold wave washed over me.
Certainty.
Not choice.
Not desire.
Not love.
"The time has come for the selection of a Crown Princess."
The words landed like stones.
"A woman of noble lineage. Proper. Suited for rule. Her worth, and the worth of her family, will be weighed accordingly." His gaze flicked sharply to me. "This is not a matter of preference. This is the command of the kingdom."
Behind me, Isabella stiffened.
Barely.
But I felt it, like a shift in gravity.
She lowered her gaze, but not before I caught the tremble in her lips. Barely visible. Only noticeable to someone who had memorized the shape of her smile.
My chest constricted, painfully.
"The selection will begin immediately," the King continued. "All noble families will present their daughters. The Crown Prince's 'feelings' " he said the word like it tasted spoiled, "are irrelevant. Any attachments… especially foreign or forbidden ones… will be severed at once."
His eyes locked onto me.
Unblinking.
Warning.
A threat dressed as royal guidance.
My hands curled into fists at my sides. I wanted to speak, to tell him he was wrong, that what I felt was not a child's fancy. That Isabella was not just "a foreign attachment."
But how could I defy the King?
The throne?
The entire kingdom's expectations?
Still… my heart whispered her name. Over and over, louder than duty, louder than blood.
When the King turned to leave, the Queen leaned forward with a thin, smug curve ghosting her lips. Calculation shimmered in her eyes. Beside her, her father remained cold and unreadable, a pillar carved from political ambition.
The announcement settled like frost across the hall.
The Crown Princess selection had begun.
And nothing, certainly not love, would be allowed to stand in its way.
Isabella stood frozen, as though grief had turned her into a sculpture. Her green eyes, usually bright, sharp, annoyingly perceptive, glimmered with something fragile.
Something breaking.
She forced a smile.
Faint.
Shaking.
A smile that stabbed straight through me.
My breath caught. My heart fractured.
And then, because the universe hates kindness, our hands brushed as I stepped past her.
A mistake.
An accident.
But the heat of her skin jolted through me like a confession I couldn't speak.
I stepped out of the hall before my resolve shattered entirely.
Before I betrayed everything I'd been groomed to uphold.
Before I turned around and took her hand in front of the entire court.
I walked.
Then rushed.
Then ran.
But when I returned… she was gone.
Her absence struck harder than any royal decree.
I bolted through the corridors, ignoring the startled guards, ignoring my advisors calling after me. My boots echoed through the palace like thunder.
I knew where she would go.
The secret pond.
The only place she ever looked at peace, the only place I ever found peace.
When I reached it, she was there, kneeling by the water's edge. Her shoulders drawn inward. Her hair falling like a curtain, shielding her expression from the world.
I slowed, breath shaking.
"Isabella…" My voice betrayed me, cracking like glass.
She didn't turn right away.
When she finally looked up, her eyes were rimmed red, shimmering with unshed tears. The sight cleaved me open.
"I-" I began, stepping closer.
She cut me off with a small, broken laugh.
"I knew," she whispered. "From the moment this all started… I knew it wasn't meant to be."
Her voice trembled, but the words were precise. Controlled. Painfully honest.
"You're the Crown Prince. And I'm… just a mistake from another world. A stranger. Our paths crossed because a science project failed, not because fate blessed us or because we were written in the stars." She exhaled shakily. "You have a duty to your people, to the crown. And my duty-"
Her voice cracked. A tear slipped down.
"-is to protect you from whatever that would harm. Even from myself. Even from whatever this is between us."
Her hands shook.
"I won't be your downfall," she whispered. "I won't be the reason they break you. So please…" She swallowed hard. "Stop burdening yourself with me. I'm not your future."
Her breath hitched.
"I'm your present. Your now. That's all I'll ever be."
She stepped past me, each movement heavy, deliberate, heartbreaking.
"We can't have what we want" she said as she left me.
And this time…
I didn't stop her.
Couldn't.
I stood there, motionless, as the first drops of rain began to fall. Soft at first. Then heavier.
Then relentless.
Rain mingled with the ache in my chest until I wasn't sure where the sky's sorrow ended and mine began.
I stood there until the world blurred.
Until the only thing I could feel was the emptiness she left behind.