To the Heart of Darkness

Chapter 21: Shake it Off, Edmund

Edmund’s POV:

I allow the thought in only because it arrives uninvited.

If Amelia had been left untouched—truly untouched by the Queen’s training, by the shaping and breaking disguised as refinement—I think she would have grown into something… lighter. Not careless. Never careless. Responsibility has always clung to her, even as a child. But warm. Approachable.

I think, perhaps unwillingly, of Mira.

Too bubbly, too bright for stone halls and whispered orders. All laughter where silence is expected. If Amelia had been spared, I imagine that same spark in her—tempered, of course, by crown and consequence. A regal poise layered atop warmth instead of buried beneath ice. Professional where needed, kind where allowed. Not the child she was, but not this… carefully composed woman either.

For a moment—only a moment—I hear her.

Not the Amelia who stands before me now, but the girl she might have become. Grown. Steady. Speaking to me as an equal, perhaps even smiling without calculation. It is absurd, this phantom voice in my mind, and yet it strikes me with such sudden clarity that I must breathe through it, as though joy—however false—has weight.

It fades quickly. It always does.

And then the thought settles, unwelcome and sharp in its honesty.

Perhaps that is why I like Mira.

The realization startles me.

I pause in my work, fingers stilled, expression schooled as ever. Like her? The word feels inappropriate. Indulgent. Dangerous. I have spent a lifetime naming emotions correctly, trimming them down to manageable, acceptable forms.

And yet.

Wait, I think, unsettled in a way no royal crisis has ever quite managed.

I like Mira?

The thought clings far longer than it has any right to.

I shake my head once, subtly, as if the motion alone might dislodge it. Foolishness. Sentimentality. I have buried far more dangerous impulses than this. And yet my mind betrays me, lingering where it should not.

Her hair, dark and always perfectly kept despite how often she moves, how it catches the light when she laughs. The way her body carries itself—too confident, too unguarded, entirely unashamed of being seen. Her demeanor toward me, all persistence and teasing respect, as if she alone has decided I am not untouchable. Her personality, bright to the point of exhaustion, yet strangely grounding in its constancy. And her smile—gods help me—soft when she thinks I am not looking, triumphant when she knows I am.

I draw in a slow breath.

This is dangerous ground. Absurd ground. I am old enough to know better, disciplined enough to be better. Whatever warmth she sparks is a trick of proximity, of long nights and shifting routines, of a castle that has grown too quiet.

With effort—real effort—I force the thoughts away. I straighten my coat, smooth the imaginary wrinkles from my composure, and return myself to the man I have always been.

Steward. Butler. Loyal servant of the crown.

The smile is gone when I lift my head.

But it took longer than it should have to erase.