THE LETTER
808 Words
The parchment felt too light in her hands to carry the weight it held.
Elena sat alone in the east-facing window seat of her chamber, the velvet drapes half-pulled to shield her from curious eyes. Candlelight flickered beside her, casting gold across the page sealed in wax with the Thornewood crest. Her fingers hovered above it, heart thundering against her ribs.
Mira had delivered it silently, eyes filled with a question she hadn’t dared speak aloud. Now, that silence pressed in all around Elena as she broke the seal and unfolded the letter.
“I don’t ask for much. Just a moment. Where the cypress trees bend, near the old wall. I’ll be waiting. Come alone. Yours, A.”
She read it again. And again. The words seemed to hum with heat.
Her pulse quickened—not from fear, but from the sharp ache of wanting what she could not have. What she should not have. What she already felt slipping deeper into her bones.
The knock on her chamber door came too sharp, too soon.
“Elena?” Mira’s voice was low. She opened the door just enough to slip inside. “Are you going?”
Elena didn’t answer right away. She folded the letter and pressed it against her chest. “He shouldn’t have written.”
“But he did.”
Her eyes lifted. “Can I trust you?”
Mira’s brows drew together, insulted by the question. “Have you ever needed to ask that before?”
Elena stood. “Then help me.”
Wrapped in a cloak of midnight blue, hood drawn low over her brow, Elena moved like mist along the palace’s edge. Mira stayed a few paces behind, alert, eyes sweeping the shadows for any trace of watching guards or loose-tongued servants.
The garden near the eastern wall was near-deserted at this hour. The torches along the battlements burned low, leaving the path bathed in silver moonlight and the rustle of leaves.
He was already there.
Adrian leaned against the stone wall where the cypress trees arched like silent sentries overhead, arms folded, his expression unreadable. But the moment his eyes met hers, his entire body seemed to exhale.
“You came.”
“You shouldn’t have written,” she said.
“And yet, here you are.”
They stared at each other, the silence between them thick with unsaid things.
Adrian stepped forward, the candlelight catching in his eyes. “This… thing between us. It doesn’t stop.”
“No,” she whispered. “It doesn’t.”
“I tried. Gods, I tried. But every time I see you…” His jaw tightened. “Elena, I would give up the crown, the treaties, the name—”
“Don’t say that.”
“I mean it.”
“You can’t.”
Elena looked away, toward the castle spires. “We’re not free, Adrian. We were born in cages shaped like kingdoms. My mother would burn down cities before letting me choose my own future. Yours expects you to marry a girl with diamonds for blood and no heart behind her smile.”
Adrian stepped closer. “You think I care about expectations?”
“I think you’re foolish enough not to.”
A ghost of a smile tugged at his mouth. “Then I must be exactly the fool you need.”
He reached inside his coat and held something out to her. A second letter, sealed in black wax.
“If anything happens—if your wedding is forced forward, if they lock you away—this will lead you to a man named Tomas. He owes me a life-debt. He’ll protect you.”
Elena didn’t take it.
“I don’t want an escape plan,” she said, voice trembling. “I want a reason to stay.”
He stared at her, eyes dark with feeling. “Then let me be your reason.”
She didn’t move. Couldn’t.
Adrian reached up, brushing his fingers against her jaw, tilting her face toward his. “Tell me to stop. Tell me this is madness, that you don’t feel what I feel.”
She opened her mouth. Closed it again.
Then he kissed her.
And the world vanished.
There was no queen. No court. No duty. No war looming at the edge of their countries.
Only two souls, aching to be one.
When they finally pulled apart, the night seemed quieter, more fragile.
“You should go,” she whispered. “Before someone sees.”
“I don’t care.”
“But I do. Because if they catch us—”
She didn’t need to finish. He pressed the letter into her hand anyway.
Elena slipped away into the shadows.
Neither of them noticed the figure hidden in the ivy beyond the trees. Watching.
Smiling.
Lady Seraphina would have her opening soon enough.
- Writer
