The water had long lost its warmth.
Katerina, Princess of Elyndra, sat curled beneath the surface, knees drawn tight to her chest, her hair floating around her like dark silk drifting through golden light. The candles along the marble walls burned low, their flames wavering in the rising steam, painting the chamber in trembling shadows.
She wanted silence. She wanted darkness. She wanted the kind of nothingness that softened pain into a distant hum.
Tomorrow, her future would be debated by men who barely knew her, yet would decide the rest of her life with a single vote. For eighteen years, she had been engaged to him, bound by royal decree since her birth.
She should have been married already, the day she turned eighteen. She should have been in Dravencourt for a month now, wrapped in the arms of Prince Maximilian, wearing the ring he promised when they were barely old enough to know what promise meant.
She should have been his.
Instead, she sat naked in cold perfumed water, heart aching, wondering if she had imagined every stolen look, every lingering touch, every letter that carried longing beneath carefully measured words of diplomacy.
She exhaled shakily and sank deeper, her eyes stinging.
Maybe he never loved me. Maybe I imagined it. Maybe for him, it was just duty.
A sudden draft swept through the chamber. The candle flames snapped violently, scattering harsh shadows across the walls. She jerked upright, water spilling off her shoulders, her heart thundering, her arms crossing instinctively over her chest.
That was when she saw it… a silhouette moving near the shelves. A shadow that vanished the moment she blinked.
Fear rushed through her. She opened her mouth to scream. When…
A hand covered it.
"Quiet," a low voice whispered against her ear. "It's me."
Her breath stilled. Her body went rigid. That warmth… that scent… that familiar gravity that pulled her in like a tide.
Maximilian. The second prince of Dravencourt. Her fiancé. The prince she had been bound to from birth. The boy she had loved without admitting it. The man she feared she had lost.
"Your Highness," she breathed, the old address slipping out, once used in teasing, then in duty, and finally, in secret, trembling affection.
He was clothed in dark riding leathers, damp from the cold night, carrying the storms of the outside world with him. Not a prince tonight, but something wilder. Something desperate. The wind had tousled his hair, shadows clung to his jaw, and his breath warmed the side of her neck in slow, dizzying waves.
"Can't you say my name at least now, Katerina?" he murmured, his voice taut with emotion he had buried far too long.
"Maximilian," she whispered the name she had whispered a thousand times in her dreams, her arms curling tighter around herself beneath the water. Her voice cracked. "You-You stopped writing. I thought… I thought you—"
"Shh." He dropped into a crouch beside the bath, and his eyes devoured her with such naked longing she felt heat spread through her limbs. "I'm here now."
She had seen him look at her with affection. With mischief. With desire at times. But never like this.
Never with the hunger of a man who looked starved for her.
He reached into his coat and pulled out a velvet-wrapped bundle. His hands trembled slightly as he opened it, almost reverently.
A bracelet. Gold fixed with small alexandrite gems… stones that shimmered like shifting galaxies in the candlelight, turning from twilight violet to deep sea green with every flicker. They glittered like captured stars.
Her breath caught.
The cool weight of gold and the shifting green-violet of the alexandrite brushed her senses, but it was his hands she noticed, his fingers steady at her wrist, patient, unhurried, as though he had all the time in the world.
The peg clicked softly into place. Final. Decisive. Too loud in the quiet.
He didn't let go.
His thumb lingered over her pulse, warm and deliberate, and for one suspended heartbeat, the silence between them said everything neither dared to voice. Her chest rose unevenly as she became acutely aware of the closeness of his breath, the warmth rising inside her, and the tension drawn tight beneath her skin.
And still, neither moved.
"Katerina," he said, voice low and raw, "I will marry you no matter what they decide tomorrow. No council, no threat, no kingdom will take you from me. Not the Kingdom of Velmont. Not even my mother. You're mine."
Her breath shattered in her chest.
"You… promise?" she whispered, tears burning, refusing to spill. Maybe this was the first time she revealed how much she loved him.
Maximilian cupped her jaw gently, his thumb brushing her cheek. His hand shook.
"I swear it on my heart and my soul. I'm yours. And you're mine."
Her hand rose on instinct, brushing his shoulder before her fingertip trailed up the warm line of his neck and over the firm plane of his chest. Their eyes locked; her green irises glistening, his sapphire gaze darkening with pure want.
She didn't know who moved first. Perhaps they both did.
Their lips collided with a hungry and devastating ache. She surged upward from the water, arms winding around his neck, pulling him into her. Water splashed around them as he dragged her closer, his fingers sinking into the small of her back. His cloak brushed her bare skin, rough against smooth, cold against warmth.
He broke the kiss only to breathe her name, their foreheads touching, his breath uneven, every exhale a plea. "Katerina…" he whispered hoarsely, "gods, you're—"
Footsteps echoed faintly in the corridor.
Maximilian stilled instantly.
"Your Highness?" a maid called from beyond the chamber doors. "Do you need help?"
"I-I'm fine!" Katerina called back, her voice wavering as Maximilian's wet hair brushed the crook of her neck. His breath warmed her collarbone, and his hand traced dangerously close to the swell of her breast.
*Crack*
The door opened.
"Your Highness… the water must be getting cold," the maid said as she stepped inside.
Maximilian's gaze sharpened. He pressed one last kiss, one feverish, frantic, and determined kiss to Katerina's forehead.
"I'll come for you tomorrow," he whispered, his fingers brushing her slightly swollen lips. "We will be wed."
He slipped toward the window, moving like a shadow slipping free of its body. Katerina clutched the bracelet to her chest, covering herself with her other arm, her pulse racing like a bird taking flight.
He paused at the ledge, bathed in moonlight, and looked at her as though he would burn the world to ash just to reach her again.
She smiled at him. Pure and full of trust.
He smiled back… Then, he vanished into the night.
Katerina sank slowly back into the water, her fingers trembling around the bracelet, her heart still thundering as the maid quietly approached her.
For the first time in a very long while, she believed everything might finally be all right.
*****
The next morning, Princess Katerina did not wake with joy. She woke with certainty.
The faint sting of Max's kiss still lingered on her lips, a warmth she kept brushing lightly with the back of her fingers, terrified it might fade if she didn't protect it. The bracelet rested cool and delicate on her wrist, which caught the morning light and shimmered between violet and sea-green, like grief and hope trapped in crystal.
He promised. And she believed him; believed him so fiercely it left her trembling.
She dressed herself without her maids, choosing her finest silk gown, the one that flowed like starlight over her skin. Emerald and gold jewelry framed her bright eyes, and of course… she wore his bracelet, the weight of it grounding her, steadying her.
She walked toward the throne room with a new kind of poise, the poise of a girl who had been chosen, wanted, claimed. Every step felt lighter. Every breath felt fuller.
Today, she told herself, everything will begin.
But the moment she crossed the threshold of the throne room, something inside her recoiled.
The air was wrong. It was too still. Too cold.
Dravencourt's ambassadors stood in a rigid line before her parents, cloaks dark as raven wings, expressions carved from stone. Her father sat stiff-backed upon the throne, jaw clenched so tightly she could see the tremor in it. Her mother looked even worse, pale and anxious, fingers gripping the armrest so hard her knuckles had turned bone white.
"Katerina," the queen whispered, relief flickering in her eyes. "Come here."
A knot twisted sharply in Katerina's chest. She stepped forward, her pulse quickening just as a royal courier approached the dais with a sealed parchment.
The wax was unmistakable. The royal crest of Dravencourt, and in the center, the initial 'M': Maximilian's personal seal.
Her father accepted the letter. Cracked the wax. Unrolled it. And his face… collapsed.
"Father?" she asked, her voice small, frightened. "What… what is it?"
He didn't answer. He didn't even look at her. He simply gave the parchment to her mother. The queen's eyes raced across the page, and with each line, her expression twisted from concern to disbelief… and finally, to horror.
"No," the queen breathed, the whisper nearly breaking. "No, this… this cannot be true."
The chief ambassador stepped forward. His voice rang through the hall like a blade drawn from its sheath.
"By decree of Prince Maximilian of Dravencourt, the engagement between His Highness and Princess Katerina of Elyndra is hereby dissolved."
Katerina blinked.
The words slid past her ears without meaning. Without shape. Without reality.
"What?" Her voice scraped out, raw and thin. "No. He—there must be a mistake. He would never—"
The ambassador continued, almost leisurely, as if delivering a weather report: "In light of the Princess's… indiscretion last night, the great Kingdom of Dravencourt cannot risk this marriage alliance with Elyndra. His Highness Prince Maximilian, with the full support of his ministers, concurs. For the record, three reliable witnesses state that an unidentified man was received in Her Highness's private chambers last night."
Her heart didn't stop.
It shattered, violently, brutally… splintering through her ribs, tearing through her breath, ripping every soft, hopeful piece of yesterday to dust.