Part 4
1656 Words
It was late afternoon in the palace.
Elira sat on a balcony ledge, legs tucked beneath her, humming as she peeled figs from a small silver dish. The breeze was warm, sweet with the scent of blooming vines. Far below, the courtyard shimmered with golden light.
He stood behind her, watching the sun in her hair.
She turned, smiling. “You’re staring again.”
“I always do.”
He stepped closer and sat beside her. For a moment, they said nothing—just breathed the same air. And then, something caught his eye.
Her necklace.
The chain peeked from beneath the loose collar of her dress, glinting softly in the sun. A charm—worn, barely the size of his fingertip.
He reached toward it, almost absently.
She blinked. “What?”
“This,” he said quietly. “You wear it every day.”
She touched it instinctively, her fingers brushing his.
“My mother gave it to me. She told me to never lose it.” She smiled faintly. “I nearly did, once. Dropped it in the bakery’s flour sack when I was nine. I cried all day until she found it.”
He gently turned the charm in his hand.
A rose. Tiny. Familiar.
Faint etchings on the back.
He frowned. “May I look closer?”
“Of course.”
She slipped it off and handed it to him.
He held it in his palm, heart suddenly beating louder than before.
The edges were worn smooth with time, but the shape, the lines… they tugged at something deep in his memory. Something long buried. The soft arch of the petals. The way the silver curled inward.
“…Strange,” he murmured.
Elira tilted her head. “Why?”
He hesitated. “It reminds me of something. That’s all.”
She watched him for a moment. “Do you like it?”
He handed it back slowly, carefully, as though it might c***k in his fingers. “Very much.”
She smiled and fastened it around her neck again, unaware of the quiet in his eyes. The stillness in his posture. The heaviness behind his quiet.
“Tell me what it reminds you of,” she asked, teasing lightly.
But he only looked at her.
Long.
Soft.
And said nothing.
***
The days after the necklace passed gently.
He said nothing more about it.
Elira didn’t notice his silence, not truly. He still smiled when she entered a room, still kissed her forehead as she drifted to sleep in his arms. But sometimes, she would turn and find him staring—not at her eyes or her lips, but at that tiny rose pendant on her chest.
She would smile, thinking it was fondness.
He would look away.
Let it go, he told himself. It can’t be. It’s just a shape. Just a coincidence.
He didn’t want to know more.
He couldn’t.
---
Then, one quiet morning, everything shifted.
Elira had gone down to the palace kitchens for fresh jam—she liked to surprise him with breakfast in bed when she could sneak away from the formal routines. She wore only her nightgown beneath a soft blue robe, her necklace glinting in the firelight.
An older male servant passed by—one who had worked in the palace since the king’s early reign.
He caught sight of her necklace as she leaned over the fruit bowls.
And he froze.
Elira noticed.
“Is something wrong?” she asked kindly.
He stepped closer. Eyes locked on the charm. “Forgive me, my lady… but that necklace…”
She laughed lightly. “Oh—this old thing?”
He didn’t laugh.
“May I ask… where you got it?”
She smiled, always friendly with the staff. “It belonged to my mother. She said she got it from someone very important. A long time ago.”
His face changed.
A slow, pale stillness came over him, like a man watching a ghost step out of the past.
“…What was her name?” he asked softly.
“Lira,” Elira said. “She raised me in a small village east of here. She passed away last year.”
The servant swayed slightly. Gripped the edge of the counter.
Elira frowned, concerned. “Are you alright?”
He didn’t answer right away.
Just stared at the necklace.
“…I gave that necklace to Queen Lira,” he whispered. “The night before she gave birth.”
Silence.
Elira blinked. The smile slipped from her lips. “What?”
“I was the steward assigned to her wing,” he said. “I remember her clearly. She was gentle. And very afraid, near the end. They told us she died giving birth to a stillborn daughter.”
His voice dropped, thick with memory.
“But there were rumors… that she ran.”
Elira stepped back, hand at her chest, fingers gripping the charm as if it might vanish.
“No…” she whispered. “That’s not possible.”
But in her heart—
Something shifted.
***
The evening sky was full of rain.
Not a storm—just soft, steady drops tapping against the tall windows, like a lullaby for ghosts. Inside the chamber, the fire burned low. Shadows moved slowly across the walls, and the scent of rain drifted in through the open door.
Elira sat near the hearth, curled in a velvet chair, brushing her damp hair. The firelight danced across her cheeks. The necklace lay quietly against her collarbone, glinting each time she moved.
He sat on the edge of the bed behind her, watching her in silence.
He hadn’t touched her all day.
He couldn’t.
She finally broke the quiet.
“Tell me the truth.”
He blinked.
Her voice was quiet—too quiet—but it carried.
“I don’t want ‘maybe’ or ‘it’s complicated.’ I don’t want you to protect me from it anymore.” She set the brush down. Her fingers trembled. “Please. I need to know.”
He looked down at his hands.
“Elira…”
“Say it.”
He exhaled.
And then—he began.
---
“I was raised to believe a king must leave sons behind,” he said. “Sons to rule, sons to lead. My council told me every daughter was a waste of the throne’s blood. I believed them.”
He couldn’t look at her.
“I married many women. Too many. I wanted a son so badly, I stopped seeing them as people. They were… vessels. That’s all.”
Her breath caught.
“When the midwives came to tell me what they had delivered,” he whispered, “I stopped listening after the first word.”
A pause.
“If it was a girl, I said only this: ‘Take her away.’”
Elira stared at the fire. Her hands slowly tightened in her lap.
He pressed on. His voice cracked.
“I never saw them. Never held them. Never named them. I gave an order, and I ate dinner that same night like nothing had happened.”
Tears stung her eyes.
“You…” she said, her voice shaking, “you killed them.”
“I let them die.” His voice broke. “Yes.”
She stood up suddenly. “And my mother—”
“She was different,” he said quickly. “She was soft, like you. Frightened. She never looked me in the eye, except once.”
He swallowed. The firelight made his tears shimmer.
“I remember that look. I dreamed of it for years. I thought it was guilt. But now I know—it was defiance. She ran.”
He looked up at her, eyes red, lips trembling.
“She ran because she knew I would have killed you.”
Elira pressed a hand to her mouth.
“I would have,” he whispered. “If I’d known. Back then… I would have.”
She turned her back to him, her shoulders trembling.
The tears came silently, slipping down her face like the rain on the windows.
He rose slowly. Stepped toward her, but didn’t touch her.
“I changed,” he said hoarsely. “Not because I grew wise. Not because I saw the light. I changed… the moment you looked at me with kindness. The moment you touched my hand and asked me how I was.”
Her breath hitched.
“I didn’t know you were mine,” he whispered. “But you healed me. And every day since, I’ve lived with joy… and shame.”
He finally reached for her hand—just her fingers.
She didn’t pull away.
But she didn’t look at him either.
“I’m not asking you to forgive me,” he said. “Not today. Not ever. I just needed you to know… before you decide what to do with me.”
Silence.
Only the sound of rain.
And then—
her hand closed around his.
She turned, slowly, eyes full of tears.
“You almost killed me,” she said.
“I know.”
“But then you gave me love.”
He couldn’t speak.
“I don’t know what this means,” she whispered. “I don’t know if I should stay or go. But right now—just for now—I want to believe in the part of you who held me like I was something precious.”
She stepped into his arms.
Not out of forgiveness.
Not out of comfort.
But out of something deeper: a longing to make sense of everything that hurt.
He held her close. His tears fell into her hair.
And she cried into his chest, trembling, breaking—but held.
They didn’t speak again that night.
They just stayed there. In the dark. In the quiet.
Two broken hearts trying to fit into the same silence.
- Writer
