The palace was silent that night, heavy with grief.
Arthur sat motionless beside Vivian's still body, the faint glow of dawn slipping through the curtains like a cruel reminder that life went on — even when his had ended.
Her hand lay cold in his, fragile as porcelain. He had seen death before, countless times on the battlefield and in court conspiracies — yet none had ever broken him like this.
He whispered her name again and again until it became breathless sound, not meaning.
And as he closed his eyes, a memory from a long-buried time stirred — the one he had spent his entire life trying to forget.
Years ago,
"Your father's with the duchess again."
"Your mother's chambers are locked. She's meeting someone from the north."
Arthur was ten when he stopped asking why.
The house was vast, filled with chandeliers and cold laughter, yet no one ever called his name except an old woman with soft, wrinkled hands elara arthur's nanny.
She would pull him into her arms when the fights echoed through the hall.
"You don't have to listen, my boy," she'd whisper, brushing his black hair from his eyes. "Some hearts are born knowing love. Others must learn it the hard way."
He didn't understand then.
He only knew that when she held him, the world wasn't so terrifyingly empty.
But time was cruel.
When sickness took Elara away, she pressed her trembling hand to his cheek and smiled faintly.
"Promise me, Arthur… when you love someone, protect them. Even if it means from yourself."
He nodded through tears, not realizing those words would shape his curse.
After her death, silence became his closest companion.
He learned to speak only when spoken to, to smile only when expected, to win affection through perfection — not warmth.
He mastered diplomacy, trade, swordsmanship, and every art of a noble. The kingdom saw a flawless man in golden armor, not the lonely child within.
He thought protection was love.
And so, when Vivian entered his life years later — bright, kind, too pure for a world like his — he loved her in the only way he knew: by shielding her, by hiding his heart so she'd never see his weakness.
He didn't know that silence could wound deeper than a sword.
Arthur sat beside Vivian's body until the sun rose fully.
The court demanded her burial, but he refused. He didn't allow anyone near her — not even Jeremy.
On the third day, his strength gave out. He pressed his forehead to hers and whispered a vow with the last of his voice:
"If there is another life, Vivian… I will find you. And this time, I will learn how to love you right."
A single tear fell onto her lips and for a fleeting second, the air shimmered faintly around them, like starlight breaking through dawn.
Somewhere beyond time, in the quiet realm where souls drift between lives, the goddess ailsa watched them both.
Her voice echoed through the void — neither gentle nor cold.
"Two hearts bound by silence. One by fear, one by faith. Let their threads intertwine again."
The golden string that once tied them flickered, pulsing like a heartbeat, then split reforming in another place, another time.
Years Later ,The Kingdom of Valtoria
The sun spilled through lace curtains as a young girl gasped awake, her chest rising sharply as though she had just escaped drowning.
Vivian.
No, not the duchess of Helio . A sixteen-year-old girl again, in her old family's modest estate, her heart thundering wildly.
Her maid burst in. "My lady! Are you all right?"