Whispers of the Storm
The candle guttered violently as the night wind slipped through the window lattice, casting restless shadows across the parchment in my hands. The enemy prince's offer lay before me—a path gilded with false promises:
Become his consort.163Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡz3qsG6Lrzh
Gain lands.163Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQyD4eCiIds
Walk free.
All it required was my signature.
And my soul.
I traced the elegant characters with a trembling finger. The ink smelled faintly of sandalwood and something darker—iron gall, perhaps, or the metallic tang of blood.
"He would discard you without hesitation."
The prince's words coiled around my heart like a serpent. Was it true? Had my Crown Prince already turned his back, believing me lost—or worse, a traitor?
A memory surfaced unbidden: the Prince's hands, steady as he fastened that jade pendant around my neck. The way his fingers had lingered, just for a heartbeat, against my collarbone.
Lies, I reminded myself. Courtiers' hands are trained to lie as deftly as their tongues.
Yet when I closed my eyes, it wasn't the enemy prince's calculating gaze I saw, but his—the Prince's obsidian eyes the night he'd cornered me in the library, burning with something far more dangerous than anger.
"You will always be mine."
A gust extinguished the candle. In the sudden dark, the choice crystallized:
Sign, and gain a gilded cage with unlocked doors
Refuse, and face whatever torment awaited
But as moonlight spilled across the floor, I realized the true dilemma:
This was never about choosing between two men.
It was about choosing between the woman they wanted me to be—
And the queen I might yet become.
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