The evening had deepened after Senna finally left, silence returned fully to the chamber.
A strange heaviness settled inside Elyndra’s body.
At first, she ignored it.
The palace had been exhausting from the beginning.
Long days with sleepless nights.
Fatigue was expected.
She looked up from the dress laid out on the bed.
Midnight blue.
Gold at the cuffs.
She ran her fingers along the fabric slowly.
It was beautiful.
Chosen carefully.
The realization warmed something quiet inside her chest.
A knock interrupted her thoughts.
”The Crown Prince awaits,” the eunuch announced from outside.
Elyndra glanced briefly toward the door before answering, “Enter.”
The doors opened slowly.
The Crown Prince stepped inside dressed in dark travel robes instead of formal palace attire.
Without the heavy ceremonial layers, he looked different somehow; less distant, though not less dangerous.
His gaze settled on her immediately.
Then on the untouched dress nearby.
”You have not changed yet,” he looked at her calmly then lingered briefly on the dress before returning to her face.
”…Do you dislike them?”
The question caught her off guard.
For a moment, Elyndra simply looked at him, Warmth spread unexpectedly through her chest.
”They are beautiful,” she answered softly then lowered her eyes slightly.
“I was about to.” “I simply lost track of time.”
Something eased slightly in his expression.
“Then I will wait outside.”
After he stepped from the chamber, Elyndra exhaled quietly and reached for the dress.
Yet as she stood, the room tilted faintly.
Her hand caught the edge of the table before she now get to the dressing room.
She changed into it.
She took a deep breath.
Then she went out.
—
He was waiting in the courtyard, his expression was lighter than she had ever seen it inside.
He looked at her when she came through the door and something moved across his face before he could move it away.
She was beautiful.
He had noticed her from the first day.
It was impossible not to.
But now, in the blue dress with the evening sky behind her and the last of the daylight catching her face, something in him went quiet in a way that was entirely new.
He had stood beside queens, noblewomen and daughters of the most powerful families in the known kingdoms.
He had never felt this particular way before.
But still underneath that, the other thing.
The one that had been bothering him since the first day.
The familiar thing he couldn’t name.
Her aura.
The way she stood.
The way her eyes moved across things.
The way she was always, always calm in a way that went beyond training.
She wasn’t just a princess.
He didn’t know what she was.
But she wasn’t just that.
He pushed the thought down.
He could be wrong.
He had been wrong before.
”You look well,” he said.
”I am,” she replied.
He offered his hand and they walked to where the horses waited.
—
The road beyond the palace walls opened into the woods.
The air was different out here.
Cooler, cleaner, carrying the smell of earth and leaves.
It should have been peaceful.
They rode through the woods, Elyndra sat in front of him in the horse and listened to the trees and tried to let it be peaceful but she noticed after a while that her fingers felt strange.
Numb.
Faintly.
The numbness spread slowly up her wrists.
She kept her face still and even as She searched her memory.
She had noticed she had been poisoned.
Then she remembered the meal she had earlier with Senna, it only started after the meal.
she searched her minds poisons without scent, without taste, slow to bloom but ruthless once awakened.
The thought arrived cold.
She remembered, Senna had eaten the food too.
Whatever was in it Senna had eaten it without knowing.
The world tilted slightly.
The trees bent at wrong angles.
The ground shifted beneath the horse’s movement in a way that had nothing to do with the horse.
”Your Highness,” she said.
Her voice came out even.
Barely.
“We should return.”
He glanced at her.
“Already? Why?”
She pressed her lips together.
Her chest was tightening.
”I must,” she said.
Too thin.
She heard it herself.
He slowed.
“Princess Elyndra.” His voice had changed.
“What is wrong?”
She didn’t answer.
She couldn’t put the right words together anymore.
Pain was spreading through her.
Not sharp at first, more like cold moving through her, through every vein.
”Please,” she whispered.
”Alright.
We go back.” he said as he turned back.
Her hand brushed against his and she felt him react to it, a slight tension, a sharp instinct.
”You’re cold,” he said.
“Why are you so cold?”
She shook her head.
Her lips had gone numb.
She could not feel her fingers anymore.
They rode fast.
The wind blowing his hair into her face as they were riding fast.
she couldn’t hold herself upright anymore, her hands were useless and she was counting breaths, each breath she took was painful each heartbeat was too loud and too heavy in her ears.
Halfway back the pain cracked open.
Not the slow cold spreading anymore.
Something else.
Something that started in her chest and broke outward and she gasped.
“Stop!” and then she was falling and his arms caught her before she hit the ground, both of them dismounted somehow, she didn’t know when, just that she was being held and the forest floor was very close and there she coughed out something on the leaves.
Blood.
From her mouth.
She hadn’t felt it coming.
”Elyndra.” His voice had lost everything, it’s usual calmness.
His composure, Gone.
Just her name said like it was the only thing in the world.
“Elyndra, look at me…”
”My chamber,” she whispered.
“Take me back. My chamber.”
”You need a physician…”
”My chamber.” She held onto that.
“Please.”
His arms tightened around her.
He lifted her and got them both back onto the horse, her weight against his chest, his arm locked around her, and then they were moving again, faster than before.
The trees blurring past, the wind cold against her face.
The darkness came up slowly from the edges of everything.
She let it come.
She was too tired to fight it and her legs had stopped working, her hands had stopped working and all that was left was the sound of hooves and the feeling of someone holding her like she was something worth keeping.