The ballroom was still humming when he left.
Auren slipped away without ceremony.
He didn't need to be there any longer.
He'd made his entrance, said all the right things, danced with the right girl.
Elara.
No—Lady Elara, now.
So poised. So sharp.
So unlike the girl he remembered.
He laughed to himself—quietly, under his breath—as he passed the empty corridor near the music wing.
"She's angry with me," he murmured to no one. "She thinks I deserve it."
He stopped at the tall window overlooking the moonlit gardens.
She'd vanished into that garden after their dance.
And she hadn't returned.
---
She used to smile at me like I was the sun.
Tonight, she smiled like she was hiding the knife.
And maybe she was.
Maybe he deserved it.
He tilted his head back, letting the candlelight paint gold across the ceiling.
His voice, when it came again, was quieter.
"You were always too bright for this place."
---
When he finally reached his private chambers, the doors closed behind him with a soft, final thud.
The silence was louder than the music had ever been.
He tossed his gloves onto the desk. Poured a drink. Didn't touch it.
Instead, he crossed the room and opened the velvet-lined drawer of the cabinet by his bed.
Inside—
A ring.
Silver. Unworn.
Small enough for the finger of a girl who used to laugh in garden shadows and kiss him under the magnolias.
"You said yes once," he murmured. "I think I forgot what that sounded like."
He shut the drawer before the thought could finish forming.
---
Elara was different now.
Not just older.
Not just sharper.
She looked at him like a stranger.
Like someone who'd already made peace with his absence.
And the strangest part was—
he missed her.
Even though she was standing right in front of him.
---
He sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, fingers threading through his hair.
"Gods, what did I do?" he whispered.
No answer.
Just moonlight.
And somewhere far away, the faint sound of a girl's laughter.
But it wasn't for him.
Not anymore.