Elara used to believe that love was a quiet thing.
Not the kind sung about in ballads or whispered about by court ladies behind silk fans, but something gentler—something that lived in small moments and survived on patience.
Her favorite memory was not the day she became empress.
It was a night much later, when the palace had finally fallen asleep.
They had stood on the eastern balcony, the city of Aurelian stretching endlessly beneath them, lantern lights glowing like fallen stars. The night air had been cool, scented faintly with rain and stone. Elara remembered leaning against the balustrade, her crown heavy on her head, her back aching from a day spent smiling until her cheeks hurt.
"You don't have to stay," she had said softly, not looking at him. "I know you're tired."
King Caelan Draven had been silent for a long moment.
Then he laughed.
It was brief—almost startled, as though the sound had escaped him by accident—but it had been real. Unpolished. Human.
Elara had turned to him in surprise, her breath catching as she stared at his face in the moonlight. His silver eyes had softened, the sharpness she so often saw dulled by exhaustion and something dangerously close to warmth.
"You always know when to let go," he had said. "That's why I keep you beside me."
Keep you beside me.
At the time, she had thought it meant love.
She had smiled then, warm and hopeful, and said nothing more. She had learned early that too many words could break a fragile thing.
That night, Caelan had draped his cloak over her shoulders without being asked. His hand had brushed against hers—just barely, just enough for her to feel the heat of his skin—and for a foolish moment, Elara had believed that this was what her future would look like.
Quiet companionship.
Mutual trust.
A love that did not need grand declarations.
She held onto that memory now, turning it over in her mind as one might a jewel—careful, reverent, afraid of chipping its edges.
There were others, too.
The way he had looked at her on the day of their wedding, his gaze lingering longer than propriety required.
The night she had stayed awake, drafting letters and strategies to protect the throne while he slept across the table, his head resting against his folded arms. She remembered brushing stray ink from his sleeve, smiling to herself at how vulnerable he looked when no one was watching.
She remembered placing the crown upon her own head for the first time and hearing him murmur, so quietly only she could hear it, "Stand beside me, Elara."
She had.
For ten years.
Ten years of swallowing words. Of smiling through cold banquets. Of offering counsel that was accepted in private and dismissed in public. Of watching him grow distant while telling herself that kings carried burdens heavier than love.
The memories shifted, darkening at the edges.
She remembered the first time he did not come to her chambers for weeks.
The first time he dismissed her warning about the northern nobles.
The first time she heard whispers of another woman and told herself they were lies.
Love, she learned, did not disappear all at once.
It faded quietly.
Like a candle burning too long in a sealed room.
The sound of iron scraping against marble tore through her thoughts.
Chains rattled.
Reality came crashing back.
Elara opened her eyes.
The grand hall loomed before her—vast, cold, merciless. Pillars carved with the victories of dead kings stretched toward a ceiling lost in shadow. The air smelled faintly of incense and old stone.
She was kneeling.
Her wrists were bound in heavy chains that bit into her skin with every shallow breath. Her once-pristine gown had been stripped of jewels and color, reduced to plain white linen that clung uselessly to her trembling body.
Around her stood the court.
Men and women she had greeted for years. Nobles whose children she had sponsored. Lords who had sworn loyalty to her with hands over their hearts.
None of them met her gaze.
At the far end of the hall, upon the obsidian throne, sat King Caelan Draven.
He wore black.
He always wore black now.
The crown rested upon his head like a burden he refused to set down. His posture was perfect, his expression carved from stone. If not for the faint tightening of his jaw, one might have believed he was observing an execution that had nothing to do with him.
Elara's heart twisted painfully.
This was the man she had loved.
This was the man who would watch her die.
"Elara Veyne," the High Chancellor announced, stepping forward. His voice echoed unnaturally loud in the silence. "Former Empress of the Aurelian Empire. You stand accused of treason against the crown, conspiracy with foreign powers, and the attempted poisoning of His Majesty the King."
A murmur swept through the hall.
Elara almost laughed.
Poisoning.
She had tasted every cup before it reached his lips for years.
"Do you deny these charges?" the Chancellor asked.
Elara lifted her head slowly.
Her eyes found Caelan's.
For a heartbeat—just one—she hoped.
Hoped he would remember the balcony. The cloak. The nights of quiet counsel. The woman who had stood beside him when no one else would.
"Look at me," she wanted to say.
He did.
And looked away.
"I deny them," Elara said calmly. Her voice, though hoarse, carried clearly through the hall. "I have served this empire with loyalty until my last breath. If that is treason, then history itself stands accused."
Gasps rippled outward.
The Chancellor frowned. "Your words will not save you."
Elara smiled faintly.
"I know."
She turned her gaze back to the throne.
"To my king," she said, softly now. "I ask for nothing. Not mercy. Not justice. Only that you remember—when this hall is empty and the crown weighs heavier than ever—that I never betrayed you."
Caelan's hands tightened on the armrests.
For a moment—just a moment—something flickered in his eyes.
Then it vanished.
"Carry out the sentence," he said.
The executioner stepped forward.
Elara closed her eyes.
In the darkness behind her lids, memories bloomed one last time—the balcony, the laughter, the whispered promise.
If I had known this was the end, she thought, I would have lived differently.
The blade fell.
Pain exploded—brief, blinding—and then there was nothing.
—
She inhaled sharply.
Air burned her lungs as she jolted upright, a scream tearing from her throat before she could stop it. Her heart hammered violently against her ribs, each beat wild and frantic, as though it were trying to escape her chest.
She was alive.
The realization struck her with such force that she nearly retched.
Elara clutched at herself, fingers trembling as they skimmed over smooth skin—no wounds, no chains, no blood. She was wrapped in soft sheets, the familiar scent of lavender clinging to the fabric.
Her room.
Not the empress's chambers.
Her old ones.
"No…" she whispered.
She stumbled out of bed, legs weak, and crossed the room in a daze. The mirror above her vanity reflected a face she had not seen in years—unlined, unbroken, eyes too large for the secrets they now held.
She looked eighteen.
Her gaze dropped to the calendar on the table.
Year 742 of the Aurelian Empire.
Three years before her marriage.
Five years before her execution.
Elara sank to the floor, a broken laugh slipping from her lips as tears streamed freely down her face.
She had returned.
The gods—cruel or merciful—had given her another chance.
Slowly, she stood.
Her reflection stared back at her, no longer soft, no longer hopeful.
"I will not love you again," she whispered to the empty room. "And I will not die for you."
Outside, palace bells began to ring—announcing the arrival of the royal envoy.
The beginning of everything.
Elara smiled.
This time, she would rewrite her fate.