The days after the whispered corridor conversation blurred into a careful, deliberate separation.
Elara's schedule arrived every morning like clockwork, sealed with the imperial crimson wax that now bore the merged crest: a sun half-eclipsed by shadow. Charity visits to the border orphanages in the morning. Afternoon audiences with displaced Valmont merchants who had fled north during the merger wars. Evening recitals in the lesser hall where she listened to poets from both kingdoms recite verses about unity—verses that felt hollower with each passing hour.
She moved through the palace like a ghost in blue silk. Servants bowed, courtiers smiled too brightly, but no one lingered. No one asked how she slept. No one offered a hand when the corridors felt too long. The isolation was surgical: planned, polite, and complete.
In the orphanage yards she knelt in the dust beside children who still flinched at sudden movements. She braided hair, distributed blankets embroidered with Valmont suns, told stories of golden fields where the wheat danced in the wind. The children laughed, clung to her skirts, called her "Lady Sun." For those fleeting moments the loneliness receded, replaced by small, warm hands and trusting eyes.
But when the sun dipped and the carriages returned her to the palace, the warmth evaporated.
She ate alone in her solar most evenings. The food was exquisite—roast pheasant glazed with honey, spiced wine from southern vineyards—but it tasted like ash. She stared at the empty chair opposite her and remembered the awkward night in Cassian's bedchamber: the way he had thanked her for staying, the way his breathing had evened out beside her like he was finally allowing himself to rest.
Now there was only silence.
She wrote letters she never sent. To Rowan: I miss your terrible jokes. To Thorne: Your maps would be useful here. To Lysander: Sing something loud enough that I can hear it across the border. The ink dried on parchment she burned in the hearth before morning. No one could know how deeply the solitude cut.
Nights were the worst. She lay in the too-large bed, staring at the canopy, listening for footsteps that never came. She told herself it was better this way—no risk of assassins slipping through the shadows, no chance of her heart softening toward a man whose father still wanted her dead. Yet the emptiness pressed against her ribs like a physical weight.
There was no one she could rely on.
Not her brothers, separated by leagues and politics. Not her parents, whose letters arrived censored and formal. Not even the servants, who watched her with wary sympathy but never crossed the invisible line drawn by the emperor's orders.
She was the princess consort of an empire that did not want her, married to a man she barely understood, and utterly alone.
Across the palace, in the eastern wing reserved for military command, Cassian felt the same hollow ache, though he named it differently.
He had always been alone—by design, by necessity. His childhood had been a series of locked doors and poisoned chalices; closeness had meant vulnerability, vulnerability had meant death. He had learned to thrive in isolation, to turn solitude into armor.
But this was different.
This was enforced.
Every morning he reviewed troop movements, inspected new border fortifications, sat through endless strategy sessions with generals who still called him "Prince" instead of "Heir." Every afternoon he trained in the sparring yard until his muscles screamed and sweat stung his eyes. Every evening he returned to an empty bedchamber, the sheets on Elara's side untouched since that one night.
He told himself it was logical and safer. The emperor's tests would continue; proximity only increased the targets. Better to keep her at arm's length, to let the court believe the marriage was cold and political.
Yet logic did not explain the quiet anger that simmered beneath his ribs.
He had been forced into everything before the wedding: forced to eliminate siblings, forced to accept the crown drenched in family blood, forced to marry for an alliance he had never wanted until he met her eyes at the border altar. And now—forced apart from the one person who had made him feel, for a single night, like he might not be entirely hollow.
The feeling was unfamiliar and unwelcome.
It was sadness.
Not the sharp grief of loss—he had never allowed himself to grieve—but a dull, persistent ache, like a bruise that refused to fade. He missed the awkward silences between them. Missed the way she blushed when she spoke of tradition. Missed the small, defiant spark in her eyes when she refused to leave his room.
He caught himself staring at the hairpin dagger she had once pressed to his throat; he kept it on his desk now, beside maps and dispatches. A reminder and a question it was .
Why did the distance hurt when distance had always been his refuge?
Three days passed without them crossing paths.
Four.
Five.
The palace was large enough to swallow two people whole.
On the sixth morning Elara stood at her window, watching snow dust the black spires. She felt the loneliness settle deeper, a cold that no fire could chase away. She wondered if Cassian felt it too, or if he had simply returned to the doll-like calm she had once accused him of possessing.
She turned away from the window—and froze.
A messenger stood in the doorway, breathless, face pale beneath his helmet.
"Your Highness," he said, bowing hastily. "There has been… an incident."
Elara's pulse spiked. "What kind of incident?"
The man swallowed. "The eastern granaries. The fires started just before dawn. Half the winter stores for the border villages are gone. The emperor is convening the council immediately. He demands your presence—and the Crown Prince's."
Elara's mind raced. Arson. It is not an accident. Someone had struck at the empire's weakest point: food for the coming winter, food that fed both Valmont refugees and Arcturus veterans alike. Sabotage meant war—either internal dissent or external enemies testing the new union.
She nodded once. "I'll come at once."
As she hurried through the corridors, guards falling in around her, her thoughts turned to Cassian. Would he be there already? Would their eyes meet across the council table? Would the enforced distance shatter in the face of crisis?
Or would the emperor use this moment to drive them further apart?
She reached the great council chamber just as the heavy doors swung wide.
Inside, Emperor Theron sat at the head of the long obsidian table, face thunderous. Generals and advisors lined the sides. Cassian stood near the far window, arms crossed, expression unreadable—until his gaze found hers.
For the first time in six days their eyes locked.
Something passed between them in that single heartbeat: recognition, relief, a silent question neither could voice yet.
Theron's voice cut through the room like a blade.
"Half our winter grain reduced to ash. This is no accident. This is treason."
All eyes turned to the emperor.
And in that charged silence, Elara realized the sudden thing that had happened was not merely fire and loss.
It was the crack in the wall of separation.
The empire's fragility had just forced them back into the same room.
And neither of them knew whether that was salvation—or the beginning of something far more dangerous.