"Being in love has a scent, and once it touches you, it never fades."
ALARIC'S POV
The garden was warm with late afternoon sun, its brightness softened by the flutter of pale blossoms drifting down from the high branches. Bees hummed lazily among the lavender, and my friends, my most trusted circle, sprawled about the stone table as though the kingdom wasn't on the cusp of unrest.
I envied them for a moment and the simple ease with which they laughed, argued, and tore bread from platters. My own mind had been far from ease for days. Elias's absence gnawed at me like a wound refusing to close. I told myself I could set him aside, that duty and crown mattered more. But memory clung to the shape of his defiance, the quiet way he saw through me, and even here, among laughter and sun, I was restless.
And then there were the whispers.
