The Knife in the Garden

Elira always believed betrayal would come from enemies. She never imagined it would come from within her own blood.

It was her brother, Prince Calen, who first saw. He had always watched her too closely, too eager for her crown, too desperate to expose her flaws. On the last night of her stay in Aurelith, he followed her steps through the darkened halls—silent as a serpent—until he caught her in the courtyard.

Seraphine’s lips were pressed against hers.

They did not hear him until the torch dropped from his hand, clattering against the stone.

“Elira.” His voice was low, vicious. “What treason is this?”

Seraphine froze, pulling back with a gasp. Elira turned, every vein in her body filling with ice.

“Calen, you do not understand—”

“I understand enough.” His smile was sharp, cruel. “You shame our kingdom. Our blood. You risk our treaty for your… weakness.”

He spat the word like venom.

---

The next morning, whispers filled the palace. The rumor spread like wildfire—Elira and Seraphine caught in embrace, their love spoken of not as beauty but as scandal. The councils of both kingdoms gathered, faces carved from stone.

Seraphine’s husband demanded answers. His hand gripped her wrist in the council chamber, his eyes flashing with rage. “Is it true?”

Seraphine’s silence was answer enough.

The king of Aurelith’s voice thundered: “You would dishonor your vows, your crown, your people—for this?” He spat Elira’s name like poison.

Elira’s own council looked at her with disappointment, fury, betrayal. “You endanger all we have built. Have you lost your senses, Princess?”

Elira rose to her feet, trembling but unbroken. “I have lost nothing—nothing but the right to lie. Yes. I love her. More than crowns. More than treaties. More than all your endless wars and hollow alliances.”

Gasps rippled through the chamber.

Seraphine’s eyes shone with tears, her hand reaching toward Elira instinctively—only for her husband to slam it down against the table.

---

That night, Seraphine was locked away in her chambers. Elira, though not yet imprisoned, was confined under guard.

But love makes fools of even the careful. Elira bribed the guard at her door, slipping into the corridors once more. She found Seraphine behind iron bars, pale in the moonlight, her hands bruised from pounding against the door.

“Elira…” Seraphine’s voice cracked. “They mean to make an example of me.”

Elira gripped the bars, her knuckles white. “No. I will not let them.”

“You cannot fight both kingdoms,” Seraphine whispered, tears streaming. “They will strip you of your crown. They will kill me. Already I hear them speak of… punishment.”

Elira’s chest burned. “Then we run. Tonight. We take horses, we vanish into the night—”

Seraphine’s laugh was hollow, broken. “You speak like a child. There is nowhere in this world we can hide from crowns.”

Elira pressed her forehead to the bars, their tears mingling. “Then let me burn it all down. Let me burn every crown, every throne, every council—”

Seraphine silenced her with a kiss through the iron, desperate and shattering.

“No,” she whispered. “Do not burn for me. Live. Rule. Survive. Even if it means without me.”

Elira’s heart tore open. “I cannot.”

“You must.”

---

The next morning, the verdict was delivered.

For Elira: a warning, cloaked in mercy only because Veyra’s council feared war if their heir was shamed too openly. She was sent back to her kingdom, under the watchful eye of her brother, her every move now caged.

For Seraphine: exile to a remote keep, far from her husband’s court, stripped of influence, locked in gilded solitude. Her “crime” was named treachery, her punishment silence.

Elira watched as Seraphine was led away, their eyes locking one final time across the courtyard. Chains glinted on Seraphine’s wrists, but her gaze was unbroken.

And in that gaze, Elira read both promise and farewell: I will love you until the end. But the end is here.

The gates closed. The bells tolled.

And with them, the fragile dream of two princesses shattered.

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