The cello played alone.

Low and haunting, it seeped up through the stone of her chamber floor, through the open windows, through the bones of the castle itself. It played like mourning. Like memory. Like a story the strings told only to the dark.

There was no fanfare. No invitation.

Just music spilled like candlewax from the ballroom windows, curling through garden paths like it had lost its way. A song made of ache and ash, spun in minor chords, too intimate for crowds and too raw for celebration.

It called to her before she even stood.

She hadn’t meant to follow it.

She knew where she was meant to be tucked in her chambers like a dutiful daughter, draped in lace and regret. Sulien had said no. Had said _not tonight_, not with the political vultures circling, not with prophecy’s shadow thickening.

But the song had found her anyway.

The windows to her quarters were thrown wide, and the cello played her bones like it remembered how they moved. It begged her to answer. It didn’t matter that she wore no mask. That her hair was undone. That the only shoes she owned were discarded on the stone floor behind her.

The garden was quiet save for the music, and she barefoot and breathless was already halfway down the path before she realized.

Moonlight draped the hedges in silver, but the clouds swallowed most of it. Still, she glowed. Not brightly. Not boldly. Just enough to be seen by someone who wanted to see her.

And he was already there.

He didn’t move at first. Just stood in the shadows near the fountain, watching. Hidden not by magic but by the garden’s silence. And perhaps his own guilt.

He wasn’t meant to be here either.

But fate pulled him just as cruelly.

She spun, arms out, head tilted to the sky. Her eyes were closed. And oh _he wanted to see them open._

The cello mourned softly. She moved as if it were telling her something only she could understand, like it was playing a truth her lips hadn’t yet learned.

She laughed. Softly. Breathlessly.

Not because something was funny but because it felt too good to be alive and young and unshackled by names and duties and thrones.

And when he stepped forward, she didn’t flinch.

Their eyes met as if it had already happened in another life.

He held out a hand unguarded. No title, no threat. Just an offering.

She tilted her head, half-curious, half-teasing.

“You always sneak up on girls dancing alone?” she asked, but her fingers slid into his.

“Only when they’re making the stars jealous.”

That earned him a smile. Small. Glinting with something mischievous.

He guided her gently, carefully as if afraid she might vanish or break or both. She wasn’t graceful in the practiced sense. But she was _free._ Wild in a way that made the night ache.

“Shouldn’t you be inside?” he murmured, voice rich and low like the last note of the cello.

“I could ask you the same.”

He almost laughed, but it caught in his throat. Because he knew what she didn’t. That she would hate him tomorrow. That her kingdom would fall. That _this_ her in his arms, fire in her breath, stars tangled in her hair was the only version of her that would ever look at him like this.

“What if we both admit we’re exactly where we aren’t supposed to be?” she whispered, stepping closer, chin tipped up just slightly. “And maybe… we like it.”

Gods. She was going to ruin him.

She was already ruining him.

“Don’t say that,” he said, barely audible.

“Why not?” Her voice was warm silk.

“Because I might start believing it.”

The music swelled. Her hand slid up his chest, resting there without thinking. Her lashes lowered. He breathed her in like a man who knew he was drowning and dove deeper anyway.

She smelled of rosewater and dusk.

He smelled of bergamot, sun-warmed leather, and guilt.

Her cheek brushed his collar. Her breath stuttered, caught, then steadied.

“You’re trembling,” he said.

“Am I?”

“I feel it here.” He pressed her palm flat against his chest.

“Maybe you’re just imagining me,” she teased, softer now. The kind of teasing that only happens in dreams.

He said nothing.

Because she _was_ a dream.

And this moment was already slipping through his fingers.

The cello wept its final verse. She moved with him one last time, and when the bow lifted from the strings, he let go.

Not roughly. Not with regret.

Just… with the reverence of someone who knew this was the last time she would ever be his.

She blinked and he was gone.

No name. No goodbye.

Only the heat of him on her skin and the scent of leather and citrus clinging to her gown.

She stood still in the garden, her heart racing like it was trying to remember the rhythm of their dance. Her lips parted as if to call out, but no sound came.

She didn’t even know what she would’ve said.

So she turned slowly, silently, and walked back toward her quarters barefoot.

And behind her, the cello cried alone.