prince

"Your baseness knows no bounds, Evelyn! This engagement is the only chain keeping you from the scaffold," Prince Alistair's voice thundered across the terrace. At my feet, amidst the shards of a glass, the 'saintly' maiden trembled pictorially, staining her white dress with wine.

Instead of the usual sobbing, I let out a dry chuckle. Slowly wiping my fingers with a silk handkerchief, I cast an icy gaze up at him.

"Your Highness, you threaten to break this engagement so often that it sounds like a plea. Do it. My trunks will be packed by morning."

I vanished from the light. While the court whispered about my madness, I locked myself in the von Stern library. The shadow magic, which I had stifled for years for the sake of the 'radiant' prince, bloomed in full force. Among the ancient scrolls, I found not only power, but the rotten secrets of the empire—and the true, far from saintly, face of the prince's favorite.

A month later, Alistair came himself. He found me in the garden: living shadows were dutifully holding an umbrella over my book.
"Why were you not at the triumph?" there was a strange resentment in his voice. "Your absence was... noticeable."

I didn't even lift my head.
"I was occupied with matters more important than your contemplation. Was it not freedom you craved?"

"Your silence irritates me more than your screaming!" he exhaled, stepping forward.

I closed the book, making the shadows dissolve, and approached him closely.
"What irony, Alistair. For years you dreamed of silencing me. And now, when I have deprived you of my attention, you have crawled back for it yourself. Has the light become too bored without the shadow?"