Three years ago — before the Duke, before the marriage, before the betrayal was even a shadow.
The palace garden wore its winter coat that morning — frost clinging to the bare branches like lacework spun from breath. A veil of mist clung to the hedges, curling around stone statues and frozen fountains.
Saren stood alone beneath the great silverleaf tree, her fur-lined cloak drawn tightly around her shoulders. The tree was a relic of older times — its bark pale as bone, its limbs etched with ancient runes. They said kings once took oaths beneath its branches. She liked it here. It felt outside of time.
Darian arrived a moment later, stepping into the fog as if conjured by her thoughts. He moved without ceremony, no bow, no smile — only the scroll case in his hand and the quiet familiarity of someone who had known her too long to pretend otherwise.
"You're late," she said without turning.
"You say that every time," he replied, offering her the scroll. "And yet I'm always the first to arrive."
She took it, unrolling the parchment without a word. Tax records. Grain shipments. Nobles who owed favors. Information. That was what she craved — not lace, not suitors, not court whispers. Power didn't lie in beauty. It lay in knowing.
"These figures…" she muttered, brow furrowing. "My brother's wasting coin on tournaments again."
Darian crossed his arms. "He thinks sport unites the realm."
"Only fools think loyalty can be bought with bread and games." Her voice was sharp, measured. "The realm needs a ruler who sees beyond pageantry. One who listens before she speaks."
He watched her with something unreadable in his eyes. "You speak as if you already wear the crown."
Saren hesitated.
She didn't speak of it often — the quiet war between her and her brother. How they had been raised together, trained side by side, competing not just for affection but for destiny. Her tutors had said she was quicker with a sword, sharper with strategy, gentler with the people.
But she had been born second. And worse, born a girl.
"It should have been mine," she said at last, softly.
Darian stepped closer, his voice low. "It still could be."
Saren looked at him now. Really looked. "You sound like a traitor."
"I sound like someone who believes in you more than your own blood does."
A silence bloomed between them.
"I would follow you," Darian said. "Not just in battle. Anywhere. Even if the path is soaked in fire and ruin. Even if it means standing against the throne."
Her breath caught. "Darian—"
"I would give you my sword. My name. My life."
She shook her head, eyes burning. "Don't say that."
"Why not?" His voice cracked then. "Because I'm not a duke? Because I wasn't part of your father's schemes? Because I was always the shadow behind you, never the man beside you?"
Her gaze dropped. "Because you matter to me too much to be ruined by my ambition."
He exhaled slowly, bitterness slipping into his voice like poison in wine. "Then you'll choose someone who's safe. A crown-backed noble. A polished husband who'll never know you like I do."
"I will choose the one who helps me win," she said coldly.
"And if he loves you?"
"Then he will burn for me willingly."
That silenced him.
A long moment passed. A bird shrieked far above — one lonely sound in a winter sky.
Finally, Darian turned. "Just don't forget this," he said, walking away. "Stars may rise, but it's the shadows that guard their light from the dark."
She watched him go, the scroll clutched to her chest.
And beneath the ancient tree, the future queen stood with a heart that hadn't yet learned the price of betrayal — not the betrayal she'd commit… but the ones she'd suffer.
......to be continued....
Author's Note
Some betrayals don't come with knives.
They come with promises that were always meant to be broken.
This chapter is a breath pulled from the past — a memory stitched in frost and quiet ambition. Before the dresses and the dukes, before the fire and the fall, there was a girl who believed she deserved the crown — and a boy who believed in her more than the world ever would.
Saren's strength has always lived in her mind — sharp, strategic, unyielding. But her weakness? That lives in the people she dares to care for. Especially Darian.
I wrote this scene not to show romance, but to show the ache of what cannot be. Because sometimes the greatest tragedies are not the wars we lose — but the hearts we never truly let win.
Let this serve as a quiet warning:
Even queens born for thrones must pay for power in coin no one counts —
Until it's already gone.
—With fire, frost, and every shadow in between,
Your author