"You danced with him," Isla hissed the next morning, her voice sharp enough to echo off the marble walls of the palace solarium.
Elara didn't even glance up from the scroll she was reading. "And you counted every step."
Isla's lips curled into a sneer. "Don't get comfortable. He only humored you because you're a novelty."
Elara calmly rolled the scroll shut. "That's still more attention than he gave you."
The slap came swiftly, not hard, but sharp enough to make a distinct sound.
Elara didn't flinch.
"That stone chose wrong," Isla's voice trembled with fury. "You're not even royal. You're a stain they can't scrub out."
Elara met her gaze unflinchingly. "And yet here I stand. Still glowing. Still not burned."
Isla spun on her heel and stormed out, her silk gown trailing behind her like wisps of smoke.
Prince Kael wasn't one to waste time.
By mid-morning, he was in the training courts, sword in hand, facing off against the palace's finest warriors.
Elara watched from the shaded gallery, arms folded.
M materialized beside her, seemingly out of thin air.
"He fights like someone who knows exactly what people whisper behind his back," M observed.
"Let them whisper," Elara replied, her eyes fixed on the prince. "I want to see what he does when the whole world is watching."
Kael disarmed his opponent with a swift, clean strike. As scattered applause rippled through the air, his gaze found Elara's.
He smiled.
She did not.
Later, in the Hall of Maps, the Empress and King held a private audience with Kael.
Elara hadn't been invited.
But that didn't stop her from hearing.
M discreetly handed her a parchment: a copied
transcript, written in tight, precise strokes.
Kael hadn't come to court anyone. He had arrived with a proposal: a new alliance, not through Isla, but forged in shared fire.
"Let the Flamebearer choose where her loyalty burns," he'd stated. "You keep her locked behind silk and ceremony. I'd put her on the battlefield."
The King had fallen silent.
The Empress, however, had not.
"She is an untested myth."
"And myths move armies."
Elara read the transcript twice.
Then, she calmly folded the paper and held it over her candle, watching it burn to ash.
That night, Kael found her in the outer gardens, standing barefoot in the moonlit dew.
"You listened, didn't you?"
"Did you expect me not to?"
He chuckled softly. "You don't belong in their cage. You burn too hot for it."
"And you think your leash is any better?"
He took a step closer. "I don't want to leash you. I want to watch what you do when no one's holding the chain."
Elara said nothing for a moment.
But the flame in her palm briefly flickered to life.
It wasn't an attack.
It was a promise.
"Then don't stand too close, Prince. Some fires bite."
Inside the palace, the Empress stood before her mirror, her expression fragile.
"She makes him curious," she whispered, her voice barely audible.
The King's reflection joined hers in the glass.
"She makes the world curious."
And for the first time in years, the Empress's silence wasn't a sign of confidence.
It was fear.