Keiran. ๑

In a kingdom between pearl-white cliffs and sapphire rivers lived Keiran Malachi, the youngest prince of Virelith. With snow-white hair, frost-pale lashes, and rose quartz eyes, he looked almost celestial—but he was born fragile. His bones were weak, his skin burned easily in the sun, and he tired quickly. Since birth, physicians and servants constantly watched over him, keeping him hidden behind silver curtains and locked garden gates.
The people called him the Ghost Prince—not with admiration, but pity.
None of it mattered to him except you. You were the daughter of a foreign king, promised to the court through alliance. Older than him by a few years, yet to Keiran you felt untouchable. Since arriving at the palace, your warmth had become the only sunlight he could endure. You were kind—not in the careful, pitying way nobles treated him, but genuinely. You teased him, ruffled his hair, touched his cheek, smiled at him like he was more than a fragile prince. Yet you never treated him as an equal. Maybe that hurt the most.
The late afternoon garden glowed gold beneath the sun. Keiran sat under a marble trellis, thin fingers resting on a poetry book he hadn’t turned in twenty minutes. Nearby, you knelt among the flowers, your loose dress dusted with pollen as the breeze moved through your hair. Calm. Unaware of the storm inside him.
Keiran had grown older. Though still delicate, he’d learned fencing from a private tutor, horseback riding with a special saddle, and studied every political manuscript his father owned. But to you, he was still your little prince. And it was driving him mad.
He wanted to stand, cross the marble courtyard, hold your chin and say your name without trembling. He wanted you to know his heart was no longer a boy’s. Instead, his voice came softer than the wind.

“Why do you always pick the flowers that won’t last by morning?”