**Chapter 7 – The Silence Between Thunder**
The morning sun filtered through the tall stained-glass windows of the palace, casting fractured light over the silk sheets that tangled around her legs. Amaris awoke with a sudden start, her chest rising and falling fast. The dream had returned—her mother's voice echoing in a field of lavender, warning her: "A crown may glitter, but it binds you in iron."
She sat up slowly, pushing tangled hair from her damp brow. For a moment, she didn't know where she was. The ceiling above was painted with constellations. The air smelled of lavender and old stone. Then she remembered: the palace. The wedding. The prince.
And the silence.
He hadn't returned after the feast.
Good.
The prince had left her after that night—after pinning her down with words, not hands, though the weight had been just as heavy. He didn't need to touch her to dominate her. His presence had a way of filling up the room, choking the air, commanding silence.
Silence was what she had grown used to. It was safer that way. Words were dangerous in this place. Missteps even more so.
The sheets beside her were still neat. He hadn't shared the bed in days.
Servants entered moments later, eyes cast to the floor as they prepared her bath. They said nothing. They never did. She was not the princess they'd wanted. She was the one chosen by a bargain—an agreement between kingdoms to quiet unrest and fulfill an old prophecy.
No one cared what *she* wanted.
She bathed, dressed, and was fitted in soft purple layers that swept the marble floor as she walked. She was led—no, summoned—to the inner courtyard. The path smelled of crushed roses and iron. She already sensed who was waiting for her.
He stood in the center of the stone garden like a carved god, arms folded, expression unreadable. The prince.
Amaris lowered her gaze out of instinct, but he spoke before she could curtsey.
"You do not need to bow," he said, voice sharper than the wind. "You already surrendered when you said 'I do.'"
Amaris looked up slowly, measuring his expression. Cold. As always. But there was a flicker of something beneath it today—tension. Displeasure. Maybe even anger.
"I haven't done anything disobedient, Your Highness."
"No. And that is exactly the problem."
She blinked, confused. "I don't understand."
He took a step forward. "You breathe like a prisoner. Move like a ghost. Do you think being invisible makes you safer in this palace?"
Amaris flinched. She hadn't expected him to speak her thoughts aloud. Her lips parted, but no words came out.
"You are my wife now," he said. "You stand beside me in council. You wear my crest. You sleep in my bed—"
She looked away at that, heat rising to her cheeks.
"—and yet, I feel like I married a shadow."
The words struck deeper than his usual cold remarks. He wasn't angry. He was... frustrated.
"And what would you have me do?" she asked softly. "You never wanted a bride. You made that very clear the night we wed."
Silence stretched between them, then.
It was not the calm kind. It was the kind that came before a storm. He looked at her again—this time longer. Studying.
"I never wanted a puppet either," he said. "And I certainly didn't want a woman too afraid to look me in the eye."
She stiffened.
"Then perhaps you should have married a sword instead of a girl stolen from her village."
That shut him up.
He stepped closer, too close, and the world tilted for a moment.
"You think you're the only one who was forced?" he asked lowly.
She froze.
His eyes bore into hers now, no longer cruel but something worse—honest.
"You think I chose this marriage? Chose to bind myself to a stranger because of politics and prophecy?"
"You didn't lose your home. Your life wasn't taken away overnight."
He didn't speak. His jaw clenched. The wind picked up.
"Then why treat me like an enemy?" she whispered.
The wind scattered flower petals between them like dying stars. Neither moved. The courtyard seemed to hold its breath.
"I don't trust you," he said at last. "Not because you're you. But because I don't trust what brought you here. I don't trust fate. Or bargains. Or crowns."
"And yet you wear one."
"It's chained to my head," he said bitterly.
Amaris didn't know what to say to that. So she didn't say anything at all.
After a long beat, he said, "There will be a royal hunt in the Northwood. You'll ride with me."
Her stomach turned. "I don't know how to ride."
"You'll learn."
"What if I fall?"
His eyes slid back to her. "Then I'll catch you."
She looked at him for a long time, unsure of what startled her more—the words, or the quiet truth behind them.
He was still a stranger. Still a storm in human form. Still sharp around the edges.
But for the first time... she saw a crack in his armor.
Maybe she wasn't the only one terrified.
Maybe power wore both their faces.
And maybe — just maybe — survival didn't mean silence anymore.