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The sun hung low in the sky, casting long shadows across the sprawling gardens of the royal palace. A gentle breeze stirred the leaves of the ancient oaks, their gnarled branches reaching out as if to touch the past. The air was thick with the fragrance of blooming jasmine and roses, but the atmosphere within the garden felt far more charged than any scent could disguise.
Viscount Jayce Talis stood slightly apart from the others, his posture stiff as his gaze flickered to the Noxian lord across the path. The man, tall and dressed in fine silks that gleamed in the fading sunlight, spoke animatedly to Princess Mel, his tone smooth and calculated. Jayce couldn’t help but notice the way the duke’s eyes lingered just a moment too long on the Princess’s face, the way his smile was just a little too knowing.
Mel, as always, seemed unbothered by the attention, her delicate features softened by the warm light. She wore a gown of deep emerald green that complimented the color of her eyes, the very image of royal poise. Jayce’s heart tightened as he watched her laugh at something the lord had said—something soft and flirtatious. The duke’s words, though innocent on the surface, carried with them an undercurrent of intention. He had been testing boundaries all afternoon, as if he could sense that the line between friendship and something more was dangerously close to being crossed.
“A lovely day, is it not, Lord Talis?” the lord called over, his voice oozing with charm.
Jayce’s lips tightened. He nodded curtly, though his eyes never left Mel.
“Yes,” the viscount replied, his voice steady but laced with something colder. “Lovely indeed.”
The duke grinned, clearly aware of the tension simmering beneath Jayce’s calm exterior. “I must say, Princess, you have a most…interesting companion,” the Duke continued, his eyes glancing toward Jayce, who stiffened further at the words. “I’ve heard much about your… impressive rise to prominence, Viscount.”
Mel’s smile faltered for a brief moment, but she recovered quickly, turning her attention to Jayce with a warmth that made the viscount’s chest tighten with both pride and longing.
“I find him rather impressive myself,” she said, her voice light but sincere, her eyes meeting his with a softness that seemed to quiet the tumult in his mind, even if only for a moment.
Jayce swallowed hard, the compliment not enough to assuage the gnawing feeling in his stomach. He was painfully aware of his status—no matter how many times he had been called ‘impressive,’ it would never change the fact that he was a man who had risen from what could be considered nothing by those in the peerage. His wealth was born of invention, of labor, of grit, the son of a knight elevated due to a chance meeting. But Mel—Mel was born into this world, a world of centuries-old titles, and deep-rooted power.
Their worlds were separated by more than just the years of history that ran through her veins. They were separated by everything that mattered to society: rank, tradition, duty. And with every glance the Duke of Noxus who held her mother the queen’s ear, gave her, with every word that passed between them, Jayce’s insecurities grew like shadows creeping across the horizon.
Mel’s laughter reached his ears again, though this time, it seemed distant, as though it came from a place he could never reach. His hand clenched into a fist at his side, and for a moment, he could almost hear his mother’s voice, stern and sad, reminding him of the gap that had always existed between them.
‘You’re not one of them, Jayce. You never will be.’
The thought hit him like a cold slap, and he stiffened, his face hardening.
Mel noticed the shift in his expression, her smile fading slightly as she caught his eye. Her brow furrowed, and she excused herself from the conversation, walking toward him with a grace that made every movement look effortless.
“Is something the matter, my lord?” Her voice was soft, though there was a hint of concern in it.
Jayce looked at her, his eyes darker than before. He forced a smile, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Just taken with a bit of a headache,” he lied, though his gaze shifted uncomfortably to the Hand of Noxus, still lingering at the edge of the garden. “‘‘Tis nothing, Your Grace.”
Mel raised an eyebrow at the title but didn’t press him further. Instead, she stood beside him in the silence that followed, ignoring the duke’s increasingly persistent attempts to engage her.
“He means to ask you for a dance, does he not?” Jayce’s words were clipped, the hint of jealousy barely concealed beneath his cool demeanor.
Mel didn’t answer immediately. She was well aware of what the Duke was after, and for a moment, a deep sadness flickered across her features. “He’s a duke and my mother’s advisor,” she said, her tone neutral, “It’s his right to ask.”
Jayce’s jaw tightened, and the old wound of his insecurity reared its head again. He opened his mouth to speak, but the words caught in his throat. It wasn’t just the lord’s attention—it was the looming specter of her royal duties, of the crown that she dictated everything in her life from the moment she was born even though she is not the eldest. He couldn’t give her that life. He could never give her the world she was born to rule.
“But you do not wish to dance with him, do you?” Jayce asked, his voice low, a quiet plea hidden beneath the surface.
Mel turned to him then, her eyes searching his face, her hand brushing his arm gently. “Jayce…”
For a moment, everything seemed to fall away. The weight of her jewels, the duke, the glittering garden—it all disappeared as she looked at him, her gaze steady and full of unspoken understanding.
“You know I cannot dance only with you, no matter how much either of us wish it,” she said softly, but there was no harshness in her words. Only a sad truth.
Jayce’s heart clenched, but he held her gaze, unwilling to look away. “I care not for the rules,” he said, his voice thick. “I care for you. Only you.”
She smiled then, a small, sad smile. “And I care for you as well,” she whispered. “However the world we live in shall never allow for us to do as we please. The way we yearn.”
They stood in silence for a moment, the weight of their situation settling between them. And for just a fleeting instant, Jayce could almost convince himself that everything would be okay—that love, against all odds, could still find a way. But deep down, he knew the truth: they were both bound by forces much larger than themselves.
The Duke approached then, a practiced smile on his lips as he bowed toward Mel. “Your Grace, would you do me the honor of a dance?”
Jayce stepped back, the polite distance of a servant to his princess. Mel hesitated, her gaze flicking back to Jayce for just a moment before she nodded with a graceful smile, her duty as a princess once again overtaking everything else.
“Of course.”
Jayce turned away, walking slowly toward the edge of the garden. His heart was heavy with unspoken words, with desires that could never be fulfilled. In the distance, the music began, the soft strains of a waltz drifting through the evening air.
And as Mel took the vile duke’s hand, Jayce couldn’t help but wonder if this was the moment when everything they had—their love, their connection—would slip away, just out of reach.
Viscount Talis remembered the day he met the princess as one remembers a wound that never truly healed. Not with pain alone, but with clarity so sharp it bordered on reverence.
The storm had come without warning, rolling in from the sea like an invading army. The sky split itself open, thunder cracking so close it rattled the ribs. Rain fell in hard, punishing sheets, flattening the tall grass of his family’s back fields and driving the animals into panicked motion. Jayce had been out among them already, boots sinking into mud, coat soaked through, shouting himself hoarse as he tried to guide them toward shelter before the lightning found bone or fencepost.
That was when he saw her.
A white horse broke through the rain like a specter, its mane darkened and slicked flat by water, eyes wild with terror. Upon its back was a woman who looked wildly out of place in the violence of the storm. Her red dress clung to her form, heavy with rain, velvet ruined without mercy. Her long dark coily hair had come loose from whatever careful arrangement it had once held and streamed behind her like a banner torn from a standard.
She looked less like a mortal and more like something dragged out of legend. One of the old goddesses his mother used to whisper to him when she would tuck him into bed as a child. Wild. Untouchable. Terribly mortal at the heart of the story.
Lightning struck close. Too close.
The mare screamed and reared, hooves pawing the air before gravity won. Jayce shouted, sprinting forward just in time to see the horse throw its rider. She hit the ground hard, a sound that haunted him long after, and did not move.
He did not know her name. He did not know her title. He did not know she was the daughter of the queen.
He only knew there was blood running down the side of her temple, oozing against dark skin gone frighteningly ashen, and that she did not respond when he called out.
He lifted her without hesitation.
She was heavier than she looked, soaked through, limp in his arms. Her breath was there. Faint. Uneven. Jayce held her close as he ran, shielding her head with his body as thunder roared overhead. He did not take her to his own home. Not with his mother’s bones pained and aching due to the cold. Instead, he went to the only people he trusted with matters of the humors, with lives that balanced on thin threads.
Viktor and Sky Young.
Their home smelled of ink, herbs, and metal filings. The storm battered the windows as Jayce laid her carefully upon the bed, hands shaking as Viktor took over with calm, precise movements, cane in hand. Sky cut away wet fabric without ceremony, cleaned the wound, murmured observations Jayce barely heard. He stood uselessly near the door, soaked, muddy, heart hammering as though it might tear free of his ribs.
For days, she did not wake.
Jayce barely left her side. He slept sitting up, ate little, listened to the rain fade and return and fade again. He spoke to her without knowing why. Apologized for the storm. Told her about the animals. About his mother. About the strange comfort of Viktor’s quiet humming as he worked.
At some point, exhaustion and fear stripped him of pretense.
He prayed.
Not to gods. Never to gods.
He prayed to his father.
He asked him, aloud and unashamed, to spare her. To let her wake. To let her live.
That was how she found him.
Her eyes opened slowly, green and lucid despite the pain etched into her expression. She listened. Did not interrupt. Did not mock. When he realized she was awake, he froze, horror and relief crashing together in his chest.
She spoke with a grace that made him go still.
Her voice was soft but perfectly measured, every word chosen with care. Even injured, even weak, she carried herself like someone accustomed to being heard. She thanked him. Asked where she was. Asked for ink and parchment.
Jayce, who had been tutored since boyhood, who knew his letters and figures and formulas, felt suddenly provincial in her presence.
The letter she wrote was brief. Precise. When it was finished, she handed it to him with instructions delivered calmly, as though what she asked were not impossible. Somehow, the letter went where it was meant to go. Jayce never learned how.
Only then did she tell them who she was.
Princess Mel of the house Medarda.
When the queen arrived, the storm had long since passed. The skies were clear, the fields drying under a sun that felt undeserved. Soldiers filled the yard. Questions came sharp and relentless. Accusations hovered like knives.
Kidnapping, they implied. Concealment. Treason.
Jayce stood his ground, hands steady, spine straight. Viktor drily answered when needed. Sky watched everything with quiet intensity. Days passed in scrutiny and suspicion until truth, undeniable and inconvenient, asserted itself.
In the end, titles were bestowed with an almost embarrassed ceremony on all three.
Rewards for loyalty. Gratitude shaped like an obligation.
Viktor and Sky accepted their baronship only because the money from the title would go into their study and feather secretly helping heal the peasantry.
Jayce accepted his viscountship with a bow, aware even then that the storm had not truly ended.
It had only changed its shape.
And every time he looked at Princess Mel Medarda afterward, poised and radiant and impossibly distant, he remembered the weight of her unconscious body in his arms. The sound she made when she hit the ground. The way the rain had plastered her hair to her face, stripping her of all pretense and leaving only a woman who could bleed and break and be saved.
It was the beginning of everything.
And the quiet promise of ruin.
Mel remembered watching Lord Talis charm the ladies of the court as one remembers an unexpected bruise. Tender. Irritating. Impossible to ignore once noticed.
He stood beneath the chandeliers as though he belonged there now, shoulders broad in a well-cut coat, hair neatly tied back, hands expressive as he spoke. He smiled easily. Laughed easily. Women leaned closer to hear him, their fans fluttering like nervous birds. Mel knew the cadence of his voice well enough to recognize when he was being earnest and when he was being polite, and tonight he was somewhere in between. Charming, without meaning to be cruel. Oblivious in the way only good men ever were.
She sat very straight, spine perfect, chin lifted, every inch the princess she had been shaped into since childhood. And she called upon years of etiquette to keep the feeling in her chest from rising to her face.
It was an unfamiliar sensation. Sharp. Hot. Possessive in a way she had never needed to be.
Mel Medarda had never wanted for anything. Not truly. Every material desire had been granted before it had time to sharpen into longing. Jewels, tutors, instruments, gowns commissioned before the fashion even arrived. A father who adored her and tried, earnestly and sometimes clumsily, to compensate for a mother who ruled from horseback and council chamber, forever touring her lands. A brother already buried in petitions and expectations as heir, affectionate but distant, trained early to look forward rather than sideways.
She had always been surrounded by people. Always admired. Always chosen.
Yet this feeling was new.
Elora, her closest lady-in-waiting and the only confidant who had never softened truth for her sake, had been the one to name it. Leaning close during another evening much like this, voice low and amused and entirely unjudging.
“You are jealous, Your Grace.”
The word had landed like a dropped plate.
Mel had laughed it off at the time. Princesses did not grow jealous. They evaluated. They strategized. They waited. But the feeling had lingered, sour-sweet and persistent, blooming anew tonight as she watched Jayce Talis bow over a lady’s hand.
Jealousy.
She, who could play the pianoforte well enough to quiet a room. Who could coax aching beauty from a violin, or command a harpsichord with bright authority. Who spoke eight languages fluently, slipping between Latin and French, German and Ionian as easily as breath. Who danced every fashionable style with precision and grace. Who inspired songs about her wit, her beauty, her charm.
She was jealous.
Jealous that the man who spoke to her of inventions and impossible dreams, who explained his work as though she were clever and worthy of understanding, was not looking at her tonight. Jealous that the man who had once prayed aloud for her life did not seem to realize he held her heart in a careless fist.
Jealous that her savior had become her friend.
Jealous that her friend might become someone else’s husband.
It had been three years.
Three years since he had been brought into her life by rain and blood and thunder. Three years since his shoulders had broadened beneath tailored coats, since his hands had roughened not only from tending fields but from shaping metal and theory into something astonishing. Three years since women had begun to notice him in earnest, their glances lingering too long, their laughter turning liquid when he bowed. Three years since whispered rumors of his…proficiency had begun to circulate through the court, spoken behind painted fans with poorly concealed curiosity.
She remembered the first time she truly noticed it herself.
It had been a midwinter ball, all candlelight and crystal, the chandeliers dripping fire above a sea of silk and jewels. Snow had gathered along the palace balconies, frosting the night beyond the glass. Inside, warmth pressed close, perfumed and expectant.
Jayce had stood near one of the marble columns, dark hair neatly tied back, beard neatly groomed, his coat a deep navy that made his eyes startlingly amber beneath the golden light. He had been speaking to a cluster of young ladies, demonstrating something with animated hands, laughter sparking easily from him. Mel had watched the way they leaned in. The way one rested her gloved fingers against his sleeve just a second longer than necessary.
It had been absurd, the way her chest tightened.
When he finally looked up and saw her across the room, something in his expression shifted. The brightness sharpened. The air between them seemed to hum, a taut string plucked.
He excused himself with effortless charm and crossed the floor toward her.
“Your Grace,” he had said then, bowing with exaggerated precision.
“You look pleased with yourself, my lord,” she replied lightly, folding her hands before her to conceal their sudden unsteadiness.
“I have just been informed,” he said gravely, “that my theories on irrigation are far more captivating than I previously believed.”
She had arched a brow. “Irrigation.”
“Yes. I am considering hosting salons dedicated entirely to soil quality.”
She laughed, unable to help it. The sound seemed to steady him, as though he had sought it specifically.
“Will you grant me this dance,” he asked more quietly, “or must I continue dazzling the court with agricultural statistics?”
She had placed her hand in his.
The orchestra swelled into a waltz, strings rising and falling like breath. His palm settled at her waist, firm and certain. The first turn was seamless. He did not guide her as though she were fragile. He matched her.
Their bodies moved as though they had rehearsed in secret. Every pivot anticipated, every step answered. She felt the strength in his frame, the careful control in the way he spun her without ever overstepping. He did not grip. He steadied.
“You are distracted tonight,” he murmured as they circled the floor.
“Am I?” she asked, chin lifting.
“You have been glaring at the Baroness Edevane with the intensity of a general surveying enemy lines.”
“I do not glare,” she said coolly.
“You assess,” he corrected, a smile ghosting at his mouth.
She should have chided him. Instead, she leaned closer under the pretense of the dance’s turn. “And what do you assess, Viscount?”
“That I am fortunate,” he replied, voice dipping low enough that only she could hear, “to be the one you chose to dance with.”
It was not flirtation. Not entirely. There was something steadier beneath it.
They spun again. Her skirts flared, emerald silk whispering against polished floors. His hand at her waist tightened for the briefest moment as the tempo quickened, drawing her nearer so their chests almost brushed.
Conversation flowed between them as easily as their steps.
He spoke of a design he had been refining, eyes alight as he described a mechanism that might harness river current more efficiently. She countered with an observation about trade routes and how such a device might shift the balance of certain ports. He listened to her as though each word were a key to a locked door.
“You think too small,” she teased softly.
“I think practically.”
“You think like a man who has not yet realized he can change the world.”
His gaze held hers then, intense and searching. “I’m beginning to believe with you beside me I can.”
The compliment stole her breath.
Around them, other couples faltered slightly, distracted by the way they moved. It was not ostentatious. It was alignment. A shared rhythm. They were not performing for the room. They were dancing for each other.
When the music swelled into its final crescendo, he dipped her just low enough to make the court murmur, but not enough to scandalize. Her hand clutched his shoulder, fingers pressing into the firm line of muscle beneath fabric. For a heartbeat, their faces were inches apart.
The room vanished.
His thumb brushed almost imperceptibly against her waist as he drew her upright again.
Applause followed. She barely heard it.
“You are smiling,” he observed.
“So are you.”
“Only because you are.”
And in that moment, beneath the blaze of chandeliers and the scrutiny of a hundred watching eyes, she had understood something dangerous.
It was not merely that he was handsome now. Not merely that other women coveted him.
It was that when he danced with her, the world narrowed to a single shared orbit.
And she had no desire to leave it.
Mel knew it was childish.
And Mel Medarda was no child.
She was, in fact, perilously close to being considered a spinster. The word had not yet been spoken aloud in her presence, but it hovered at the edges of conversations, heavy with implication. She would need to choose a husband soon. That much was unavoidable.
She knew precisely which man she was expected to choose. Which alliances needed shoring. Which borders needed soothing. She also knew, with painful clarity, which man she would have chosen if the world had been kinder.
That knowledge was why she kept circling the Duke. Why she smiled when expected. Why she allowed dances that led nowhere. It was duty dressed up as indecision.
Behind her, Elora coughed softly.
The sound was enough.
Mel blinked, schooling her expression into something pleasant, something serene. She smoothed an imaginary wrinkle from her skirts, relaxed her hands where they rested in her lap. Her eyes shifted away from the dance floor, away from the woman laughing too freely with the Viscount who had stolen her heart without ever meaning to.
She turned instead toward her waiting suitors.
Men with titles better suited to a princess. Men her parents approved of. Men her brother trusted.
Men who did not make her chest ache.
Her smile returned, flawless and practiced, and the court saw only Princess Mel Medarda, radiant and composed, playing her part perfectly.
Only Elora noticed the way her fingers curled just a little too tightly into silk.
The promenade glimmered beneath lanternlight, pale stone warmed by dusk and the low murmur of polite society. Couples drifted along its length in measured steps, silk skirts brushing marble, laughter rising and falling like rehearsed music.
Jayce Talis walked among them with a lady on his arm whose name he would later struggle to remember.
She was pleasant. Sensible. The sort of woman his mother would have approved of had she still lived to see this version of him. She listened when he spoke, laughed in the appropriate places, asked questions about his work with genuine curiosity. Her hand rested lightly against his sleeve, a careful intimacy that suggested possibility without presumption.
And yet his attention kept slipping.
His gaze flicked, again and again, toward the palace doors at the far end of the walk. Toward the gardens beyond. Toward the place where he knew Mel would be, whether he wished to think of her or not.
He thought of a day he’d spent with the princess and her closest companion at Baron and Baroness Young’s home.
Viktor and Sky’s estate sits at the edge of a gentle rise, all climbing ivy and clever windows designed to catch the best of the sun. Inside, the air smells faintly of oil and bergamot. Blueprints sprawl across a long walnut table. Springs, wires, and half-formed contraptions glint like scattered thoughts.
Viktor stands bent over a schematic, cane propped against the chair beside him, sharp eyes narrowed in irritation. Sky is cross-legged on the rug with a gear assembly in her lap, muttering numbers under her breath. Jayce paces between them, broad shoulders tense, hands already smudged with graphite.
“It should stabilise,” Jayce insists, tapping the edge of the page. “The output is consistent.”
“It is not the output,” Viktor replies crisply. “It is the distribution. You are attempting to force singular control where the structure demands balance.”
Sky blows a curl from her face. “It’s like trying to make one beam carry the weight of an entire ceiling.”
Across the room, Mel sits at the pianoforte, sunlight gilding the curve of her cheek and the emerald silk pooled around her ankles. Elora occupies the chaise beside her, embroidery forgotten in her lap as she observes the trio with fond amusement.
The music is light. Effortless. Deceptively so.
Mel’s fingers move with practiced grace, each note falling into place as if the instrument itself were eager to please her. She does not look at the inventors as they spiral deeper into frustration.
Instead, she sighs softly and addresses Elora as though they are entirely alone.
“Do you remember how dreadful my debutant year was, my dearest?” she asks breezily, never missing a note. “At least on the inside?”
Elora’s lips quirk. She has known Mel since childhood. She knows that tone.
“But of course, Princess,” Elora replies, adjusting her gloves with theatrical solemnity. “You were quite determined to be the sun around which the entire court revolved.”
Jayce’s pacing slows, almost imperceptibly.
Mel hums, the melody turning playful. “I was spreading myself far too thin. Hosting. Patronizing. Studying. Smiling until my cheeks ached. I thought if I simply shone brightly enough, all would be well.”
“And yet,” Elora says, catching on fully now, “after one too many strains, I observed certain cracks beneath the polish.”
Mel nods faintly, hands dancing over the keys. “It was only when I learned to lean, was it not? On you. On the ladies in my retinue. On quiet support unseen by those who applauded.”
Sky’s muttering stops.
Viktor’s pen stills.
Jayce turns his head slightly toward the music.
Mel continues, voice thoughtful but light. “I do wonder how anyone, no matter how important, convinces himself he can hold all power alone.”
Elora tilts her head. “Pride, perhaps.”
“Or fear,” Mel muses.
Her eyes flick briefly toward the table of schematics before returning to the keys.
“Your gardens are kept tidy by gardeners,” she says gently. “Your kitchens run by cooks. Your estates managed by stewards. Even a queen relies upon messengers and ministers. Support unseen, yet essential.”
There is a pause.
The melody softens, then builds.
“Power,” she adds, “is rarely singular. It thrives in quiet networks. Shared strain. Distributed weight.”
The silence on the other side of the room is no longer frustrated. It is considering.
Sky is the first to move. She sits up straighter, eyes flicking between the diagram and Jayce.
“If the pressure is centralised,” she says slowly, “we are forcing the core to compensate for fluctuation.”
Viktor’s gaze sharpens. “But if we divided the current through auxiliary channels…”
Jayce strides back to the table, pulse quickening. “Secondary regulators. Smaller conduits. Not one primary stabiliser, but three.”
Sky grins. “Hidden supports.”
Viktor’s mouth curves despite himself. “Unseen gardeners.”
Mel’s music swells, triumphant without being loud.
Jayce looks over at her then. Really looks.
She does not meet his gaze. She simply plays, composed as ever, as if she has not just untangled a problem that had tied them in knots for a fortnight.
He crosses the room before he can stop himself.
“You knew,” he says softly.
Mel glances up at him at last, lashes lowering in feigned innocence. “Knew what, my lord?”
“That we were being foolish.”
She smiles faintly. “I would never accuse three brilliant minds of foolishness.”
Elora coughs delicately.
Jayce huffs a quiet laugh, warmth spreading through his chest. “You gave us the answer.”
“I gave you a story,” she corrects. “You found your own answer.”
Viktor approaches as well, cane tapping lightly against the polished floor. His eyes rest on Mel with something like respect sharpened to a fine edge.
“You have a talent,” he says evenly, “for reframing arrogance into architecture.”
Mel inclines her head. “One learns, when raised among conquerors.”
Sky bounds forward next, impulsive as ever, and drops into a dramatic curtsey before Mel. “We shall name the secondary regulators after you.”
Mel laughs, bright and unguarded. “Pray do not. I would rather not have machinery blamed for every future malfunction.”
Jayce cannot help himself then. He takes her hand and presses a kiss to her knuckles, gratitude and something warmer threaded through the gesture.
“You make us better,” he says quietly.
Her fingers tighten just slightly around his.
“And you,” she replies, eyes luminous, “remind me that even the brightest flame benefits from tending.”
The schematics are revised before dusk.
The invention succeeds because three inventors listened.
And because a princess, who once tried to carry the world alone, learned instead how to teach others to share the weight.
“You seem distracted, Lord Talis,” the lady said gently, not unkind.
“My apologies,” he replied at once, offering her a rueful smile as he’s brought back to the present. “Old habits. My mind wanders when it should not.”
She smiled back, indulgent. “Inventors, I am told, are rarely where they stand.”
Jayce exhaled a quiet breath of laughter, but it rang hollow even to his own ears.
They took a few more steps before a hush rippled through the promenade ahead of them. Not silence. Something subtler. A tightening. A collective leaning-in.
Two courtiers passed them, heads bent together. Jayce caught the words without trying.
“…the princess—”
“…most unfortunate—”
“…Duke of Noxus, apparently—”
Jayce stopped walking.
The lady on his arm faltered with him, surprised. “My lord?”
He turned sharply toward the passing men. “What has happened?”
They froze, color draining from their faces at his tone. One hesitated. The other glanced around, weighing risk.
“It is… being said,” the braver of the two murmured, “that Her Grace’s reputation has suffered. That she has been… compromised.”
The word hung there, ugly and deliberate.
Jayce felt something in him go cold and precise.
“By whom,” he asked quietly.
A pause. Then, reluctantly: “Duke Darius.”
The world narrowed to a thin, burning point.
The lady beside him drew in a sharp breath. “Lord Talis, surely—”
Jayce gently removed her hand from his arm.
“I beg your forgiveness,” he said, voice steady despite the fury coiled beneath it. “I must go.”
She stared at him, startled, wounded pride flickering across her features. “Now?”
“Yes.”
He hesitated, just long enough to meet her eyes honestly. “If I do not,” he added, “I will never forgive myself.”
Then he turned and left her standing there, murmurs already rising behind him. He was dimly aware of the attention. Of the way heads turned. Of how this would be remembered.
He did not slow.
He left the gardens at a near run, boots scuffing gravel, heart pounding harder with every step. The promenade never saw him return.
Jayce crossed the palace threshold with a storm still in his stride. Servants parted before him, startled by the intensity written plain across his face, never stopped by guards due to his previous familiarity with the princess. He did not slow until he reached the private wing, where polished marble swallowed the echo of his boots.
The Queen’s consort was waiting.
King consort Medarda stood near a tall window, hands clasped behind his back, light brown gaze assessing but not unkind. He had aged hands. Kind eyes. The sort that had steadied crowns and silenced scandals long before Jayce ever learned to shave.
“You have heard,” the consort said.
“Yes.”
“And you come not as a viscount seeking advantage.”
Jayce met his gaze without flinching. “No, Your Highness.”
A long pause followed. Measured. Weighing.
At last, the consort inclined his head toward the corridor. “She is in the west drawing room. Do not make matters worse.”
“I will not,” Jayce said.
That was not entirely true.
Mel stood before the hearth when he entered, the fire painting her in molten amber and shadow. The drawing room was smaller than most within the palace, meant for music and private audiences rather than spectacle. Velvet settees in jewel tones curved toward one another beneath a painted ceiling of cherubs and sky. A harp stood silent in the corner. The air smelled faintly of beeswax and smoke.
And yet the room felt vast.
Vast with the distance that had grown between them.
She did not turn when the door shut behind him. The click of the latch seemed indecently loud.
“I wondered how long it would take,” she said coolly, gaze fixed upon the flames.
Jayce removed his gloves slowly, more to steady his hands than from etiquette. “Your Grace—”
“Do not.” She turned then, skirts whispering sharply over polished wood, emerald silk catching firelight like a blade. Her eyes were not merely green tonight. They were bright. Incandescent. “Do not address me so formally now.”
He had seen her endure insult with serenity. Seen her parry diplomats twice her age into agreeable submission. He had never been the object of her fury.
It unsettled him more than any rumor could.
“You left the promenade,” she continued, voice precise enough to cut crystal. “How very dramatic of you.”
“I heard what the duke has done.”
“And what concern is that of yours?” she demanded.
The question struck him like a physical blow.
Mel stepped toward him, measured and controlled, but the tremor beneath her poise betrayed her. “For weeks, my lord, you have made a spectacle of yourself. One lady for tea. Another for a ride. A third escorted to supper. And those freer with their affection, you did not even trouble to hide.” Her chin lifted, pride shielding something more fragile beneath. “You have been quite… industrious.”
Jayce did not look away.
“You pull away from me,” she pressed, anger thinning at the edges. “You decline my invitations. You look at me as though I am already tainted by association. As though I am something to be handled with gloves.” Her voice faltered just once. “And now you arrive here as if you have claim to soothe my distress?”
He had thought himself the only one suffering. Thought her too composed, too pragmatic to feel the fracture.
“Mel,” he said, her name a plea.
“No.” She took another step closer. “You do not get to play savior today. Not when you have spent weeks proving how little I matter. Did you not consider that your abrupt retreat from my side would give Darius precisely the fuel he required? That whispers of impropriety thrive best in absence?”
He had not.
The realization burned.
He stepped forward anyway, despite the warning in her posture. “Every lady I have taken out for tea,” he said evenly, “every distraction I have indulged, has been an attempt to do the honorable thing.”
A brittle laugh escaped her. “Honor? Is that what we are calling it?”
“Yes.”
The certainty in his tone stole some of her fire. She had expected excuses. Evasion. Not conviction.
“You told me,” he continued, “that we could not be as we wished. That the world would never allow it. That your duty would always eclipse us.” His jaw tightened. “I believed you. So I attempted to forget.”
“And did you?” she asked, the question softer now.
He smiled, faint and aching. “No.”
Silence fell heavy between them.
“I entertained others because I thought I might quiet what I feel for you,” he said. “I thought if I could prove to myself that I desired another, that I could build something elsewhere, I might free you from scandal and myself from longing.”
Her breath hitched.
“It did not work,” he said simply.
He closed the distance between them until only a breath separated their bodies. Close enough to see the delicate pulse at her throat. Close enough to feel the warmth radiating from her skin.
“Every dance was hollow,” he confessed. “Every laugh forced. I compared them all to you without meaning to. Their wit to yours. Their curiosity to yours. Their strength to yours.” His voice lowered. “They were kind. They were beautiful. They were not you.”
Her hands trembled, though she clasped them tighter to hide it.
“You think I did not hear the rumors?” she whispered. “Of your conquests. Of your appetite.”
“I hoped you would,” he admitted.
Her eyes widened.
“I hoped it would make you angry enough to let me go.”
“You arrogant man,” she breathed, but there was no venom in it now.
“I am,” he said quietly. “Arrogant enough to believe I might survive losing you. I was wrong.”
The fire cracked sharply behind her, as if punctuating the confession.
“Darius is spreading lies,” Jayce continued, voice darkening. “He would stain your name to force your hand. He would make himself your only salvation.” His hands curled at his sides. “The thought of you being cornered into marriage under threat—of you sacrificing yourself because you believe it necessary—”
His composure fractured.
“It is unbearable.”
Mel searched his face carefully, as she would a treaty presented for signing. Looking for flourish. For manipulation. For gallantry rehearsed.
There was none.
Only a man stripped of pretense.
“You ask what concern it is of mine,” he said, voice low and steady now. “It is mine because I love you.”
The words did not shatter the air. They settled into it. Weighty. Irreversible.
“I have loved you since the storm,” he said. “Since you opened your eyes and thanked me as though I had done something miraculous, when in truth I had only done what any decent man would have done. I love you. I have loved you in previous lives, and I will love you in future lives. All the plotting and backstabbing—everything we’ve endured—it’s worth it when I see the stars in your eyes as you speak to me of your latest book, when I feel the weight of your words pressing against my heart, when I hear your laugh and the world feels right for just a moment.”
Mel’s breath hitched in her throat, her pulse racing. Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears as she stepped closer.
“You, my rarest of jewels,” Jayce continued, his voice breaking with the depth of his love. “You have a power over me that no one else will ever have. If you were to tell me to make the sun rise in the opposite direction, I would burn my hands forcing it to be so, just to see the smile on your face, just to make you happy. I love you when we’re apart, when we’re in the same room but bound by duty and silence. And I miss you when we jest, when I can hear your voice but know it’s not enough. I love you, Mel.”
Her composure broke.
“You cannot say such things,” she whispered, even as her eyes shone.
“I can,” he replied. “And I will. I love you. Not as a princess. Not as a symbol. As a woman. As Mel.”
He reached for her hands, hesitating only long enough to give her the chance to refuse. She did not.
“I do not care for crowns,” he said. “I do not care for alliances. If you command me to walk away, I will do so. I will bear it and never trouble you again. But do not mistake my retreat for indifference. Every step I have taken from you has been an act of cowardly preservation. Not lack of devotion.”
Her fingers tightened around his.
“You fool,” she said softly.
“Yes,” he answered without hesitation.
“You thought bedding half the city would make me forget you?”
“I hoped it would make you despise me.”
She let out a breath that trembled between laughter and tears. “It did not.”
Hope flared in his chest so bright it hurt.
“You plan to challenge Darius,” she said after a moment, studying him carefully. “Do not insult me with denial.”
“I will request satisfaction,” Jayce said. “If he refuses to retract his slander, I will meet him at dawn.”
“And if I forbid it?”
A faint, self-deprecating smile touched his mouth as he lifted her hands to his lips but did not yet kiss them. “Then I will be a very poor subject,” he murmured. “Because I will not stand idle while your honor is bartered.”
Emotion flickered across her face. Fear. Pride. Love.
“You would risk everything,” she said.
“For you?” His answer came without pause. “Gladly.”
Her arms slid around him then, propriety abandoned in the privacy of the drawing room. She pressed her cheek to his chest, listening to the thunder of his heart. He bent his head, lips brushing her dark curls, breathing her in as though committing the moment to memory.
“In my experience,” he murmured against her hair, “men are often foolish.”
She smiled faintly against him.
“But I am grateful,” he continued softly, “to be your fool.”
Outside, the palace churned with rumor and calculation. Servants carried whispers down corridors like contraband. Somewhere beyond the gates, Darius drank brandy and plotted.
On the morrow, the sun will barely have the courage to rise.
Mist will coil low over the dueling grounds beyond the eastern wall, pale and watchful as a congregation. The grass will be silvered with dew, each blade trembling under the weight of a night not yet finished. Jayce will stand in the half-light with a pistol resting heavy in his palm, its metal colder than he expects.
He does not believe in gods.
He believes in steel. In mathematics. In consequence.
And yet, as dawn stains the horizon faint rose, he will bow his head.
Not to a deity.
To his father.
To the memory of the man who taught him how to hold his shoulders square and his word even squarer. He will ask, quietly, for steady hands. For clear sight. For one more chance to see his mother’s lined face in the kitchen doorway and Mel’s eyes lit by something other than candlelight.
Across from him, The Duke of Noxus will look less like a conqueror and more like a man who has not slept. His skin will carry a strange pallor beneath its usual cultivated bronze. His movements will lack their habitual precision. There will be a tremor at the edge of his posture, subtle enough to be dismissed as nerves.
Only it will not be nerves.
Hours earlier, in the deep hush of the palace kitchens, Mel Medarda will have shed her princess’s silk for something darker. Elora will stand beside her, sleeves rolled, expression composed in the way of a woman who has long ago learned that power rarely announces itself loudly.
They will not use daggers.
They will use patience.
Among the unfortunates housed within the palace walls, among servants invisible to most noble eyes, there will be those loyal not to titles but to kindness. A coin placed discreetly. A word spoken with care. A cup refilled one too many times. A cordial fortified with something bitter and slow.
Nothing fatal.
Mel is not reckless.
Only enough to loosen the duke’s grip on his own body. Enough to let fever crawl under his skin and cloud his vision. Enough that when he lifts his pistol at dawn, the world will tilt just slightly to the left.
Mel will not tell Jayce.
She knows him too well. He would refuse any advantage not won by his own merit. He would call it dishonorable.
She calls it survival.
Back in the drawing room, none of that has yet unfolded.
There is only warmth.
Jayce’s arms circle her as though he has finally allowed himself to claim what he has denied for years. His hand spans the small of her back, steady and possessive without thought. Mel rests against him without calculation, without weighing consequence, her ear pressed to the steady percussion of his heart.
It is a strong heart.
Stubborn.
“You will not die,” she says softly, though it sounds more like command than reassurance.
He smiles against her hair. “I intend not to.”
“You are infuriatingly certain.”
“I am terrified,” he corrects quietly.
She leans back just enough to look at him. “You?”
“For you,” he says simply. “Yes.”
The confession does not make him smaller in her eyes. It makes him incandescent.
Her fingers trace the line of his jaw as though committing it to memory. “If you fall,” she says, voice barely above a breath, “the court will call you reckless.”
“I have been called worse.”
“I will call you mine,” she counters.
His breath catches.
Outside these walls, alliances will be weighed and recalculated. In a fortnight, the conquering queen will return from her tour of the outer territories, armor traded for silk, crown heavy with decision. She will hear the rumors. She will measure the viscount who dares duel for her daughter. She will decide whether love is an indulgence or an asset.
The match will be evaluated not by poetry but by advantage.
Jayce Talis, son of a knight, inventor raised by grit and thunder, will stand before a queen who has conquered more than men.
And yet.
In this moment, none of that matters.
The fire crackles softly behind them, throwing shifting gold across emerald silk and dark curls. His forehead rests against hers. Their breaths mingle. The world beyond the door feels distant, manageable.
“Whatever comes,” he murmurs, “I do not regret loving you.”
Mel’s hands slide up to cradle his face, thumbs brushing the roughness of his jaw. “Nor I,” she whispers.
For once, the princess does not think of treaties.
For once, the viscount does not think of consequence.
They stand there wrapped in each other, warmth against the creeping chill of what dawn will demand, knowing that by sunrise blood may stain the mist and by fortnight’s end a queen’s decree may reshape their lives.
But tonight, in the quiet cradle of the drawing room, there is no duke.
No court.
No crown.
Only the steady beat of two hearts that have finally, recklessly, chosen one another.