The Garden
The mahogany double doors of the private courtyard creaked open with a chilling finality. Elvan stood at the threshold, a thick stack of military expenditure reports clutched in one hand, his silver-white hair catching the pale afternoon glare. He hadn't set foot in the eastern wing since his father forced this absurd marriage upon him. To Elvan, the invisible "wife" was nothing more than an expensive ghost haunting his hallways—a useless political ornament tucked away to keep the old king quiet.
.
Then, his amber eyes locked onto the figure standing by the marble fountain.
.
She wasn't weeping over embroidered handkerchiefs or fluttering about like the aristocratic dolls he was used to executing. Fionia stood bathed in gold, her fingers tracing the edge of a blooming nightshade, her posture entirely unbothered by the crushing weight of the Alaric crest embroidered on the mansion's iron gates. There was a quiet, unshakable sovereignty in the way she carried herself—an independence that radiated like dry tinder waiting for a spark.
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A dark, unfamiliar coil tightened in Elvan’s chest. It wasn't fascination; it was the violent, primal instinct of a predator realizing something in its territory was breathing without his permission. Who gave her the right to look so entirely at peace in my domain?
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He didn't announce himself. Instead, his heavy boots crunched deliberately across the gravel path, closing the distance between them with predatory silence until he stood just inches behind her shoulder, his shadow swallowing her light.
"You look far too comfortable for someone trespassing in the private gardens of a man whose name makes your entire family tremble," Elvan’s voice cut through the afternoon breeze, low, sharp, and dripping with the casual menace that had earned him the dread of the entire kingdom.
He leaned in slightly, his gaze locking onto the side of her face, waiting for the inevitable terror, the trembling knees, the pathetic plea for mercy that every single person before her had delivered.
“Huh…? You are…?”
She slowly turned back, looks at him with confusion, a light nodded politely. Tugged the strand of her hair behind her ear as a light wind flow passes them.
A muscle ticked sharply along Elvan’s jawline.
Confusion? Polite acknowledgment? A stray lock of hair dancing in the breeze as if they were meeting in a charming village square rather than the blood-soaked grounds of the Alaric estate?
His amber eyes narrowed, searching her face for the familiar, shivering glaze of panic that every courtier, noble, and petitioner invariably wore in his presence. Instead, he found only a mild, detached curiosity—as if she were looking at an unruly stray cat rather than the crown prince whose mere glare could empty a banquet hall.
The silence stretched between them, thick and volatile, charged with the sudden, suffocating pressure of his overwhelming aura.
"You don't know who I am," Elvan stated, more than asked, his voice dropping into a dangerous, silken register. He didn't step back; instead, he closed the remaining inches, his towering frame forcing her to tilt her chin if she wanted to meet his gaze. A dark, crooked amusement flickered behind his cold eyes, though it carried the weight of a guillotine blade hovering just above a neck.
"Insolence born of ignorance, or a very calculated death wish? Tell me, guest... did the servants forget to brief you on the master of this house, or are you simply too arrogant to care?"
“My apologies, but I’m not a guest here Mr,
I’m Mrs. Alaric.”
The words hung in the crisp afternoon air, sharp and unyielding, dropping like a lead weight onto the manicured gravel between them.
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Elvan froze.
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The dangerous, coiled amusement in his eyes instantly shattered, replaced by a momentary, stunned silence. His gaze swept over her once more—really looked at her—not as a stray trespasser, but through a violently shifting lens. Mrs. Alaric. The wife his father had bullied him into accepting. The nameless pawn from the Nauven family whom he had deliberately ignored, refused to meet, and mentally relegated to some dusty corner of the eastern wing to rot in obscurity.
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A dark, volcanic fury surged through his veins, hot and blinding. He had spent a full month avoiding her out of spite, fully expecting some weeping, trembling aristocratic coward who would cower at his shadow. Instead, she had been living under his very nose, tending to the gardens, entirely unbothered by his existence, while he was the i***t standing in his own courtyard looking like an uninvited guest.
He let out a low, humorless bark of laughter—a sound devoid of warmth, echoing like iron striking stone.
.
"Ah," Elvan breathed, his voice dropping to a lethal, trembling whisper as he closed the remaining distance, towering over her with an intensity that could c***k stone. His fingers shot out, gripping her chin with a bruising, possessive force, compelling her face upward so she had no choice but to look directly into his blazing amber eyes. "The disposable daughter of the Nauvens. The sacrifice they so eagerly threw to the wolf."
His thumb brushed harshly across her jawline, his expression a mask of dark, twisted fascination and suffocating dominance.
"You think because I didn't show up at the altar, you own this place? You think you can wander into my sightline looking like you own the sun, acting as if my name means nothing to you?" He leaned down, his breath brushing her lips, heavy with warning.
"Tell me, wife... are you truly this brave, or are you simply too stupid to realize whose grave you just danced on?"
