Third Person's POV
The morning was golden, sunlight spilling across the palace courtyards in a gentle haze. Talia had just finished her morning audience with ministers when Stella approached her with a small bow.
"His Majesty requests your company for breakfast, my queen. In the east solarium."
Talia paused, surprised. It had been months since Caelen had extended such an invitation — not since the days before their marriage soured, when they had once stolen quiet mornings together over steaming cups of spiced tea and platters of fruit.
She agreed softly, if only to see what game he played now.
⸻
The solarium was filled with light, its tall glass panes opening onto the gardens below. A table had been set with care: golden plates, crystal goblets, and trays of citrus, honeyed breads, and roasted meats. Caelen rose as she entered, his brown eyes briefly alight with something almost boyish.
"You came," he said, as though the words surprised him.
"I did," Talia replied simply, moving with her usual grace as she took her seat.
For a long moment, he simply watched her — her long pink hair spilling in gentle waves, her golden-orange eyes bright in the morning light, her skin glowing like warm caramel touched by the sun. She looked, for the first time in years, unburdened. Radiant. And he remembered with a pang the first time he had seen her across a crowded court — the stranger whose beauty had struck him silent, the heir to Solara whose smile had been like a spell.
Yet now she smiled without him.
He forced a chuckle, trying to mask his unease. "It feels like old times, doesn't it? Just you and me, no council, no duties."
Talia's lips curved faintly, though her eyes gave little away. "Old times are not always worth revisiting."
The words stung more than he let show. He leaned forward, his voice low, coaxing. "I've missed this. I've missed you."
But her gaze remained calm, steady, unbothered. The look she gave him was no longer that of a wife hoping for his love, nor a queen seeking his approval. It was the look she had given him the very first time they met — when she had been a stranger, radiant and untouchable, and he had been the one enchanted.
And for the first time in years, Caelen realized he was losing her — not to bitterness, but to her own unshakable light.
A servant poured fresh tea, the steam curling delicately between them. For a moment, neither spoke, the quiet punctuated only by the clink of crystal and silver.
Caelen watched her with the same hunger as before, unable to reconcile the woman before him with the wife he thought he still possessed. He reached for the bowl of fruit and placed a slice of honeyed orange on her plate, an old gesture he used to charm her in their early days.
Talia inclined her head in thanks, but her eyes never softened. She lifted the orange slice delicately, tasting it with the same unbothered grace she had worn the moment she entered.
"Do you remember," Caelen said suddenly, voice low and coaxing, "when we first sat here together? Before the vows. Before the crown. You laughed at how poorly I peeled the fruit. You said I was all nerves, though I was trying to impress you."
Talia looked at him then, a small smile curving her lips. But it was not the smile of a woman reminiscing fondly. It was the smile of someone who remembered differently.
"I remember," she said softly, "that you were captivated. You could not take your eyes off me, though I was nothing more than myself. No crown. No titles. Just a stranger you wanted."
Her words struck too close, and Caelen's chest tightened. He forced a chuckle, trying to reclaim the charm. "And I still want you."
Talia placed her cup gently on the table, her orange-gold eyes steady. "No, Caelen. You want what you lost. But I am no longer waiting for you to find it."
Silence fell, heavier than before.
Caelen's smile faltered, but he recovered quickly, leaning back in his chair. "You've grown sharper, Talia. But perhaps that's what I've always wanted most. A queen with fire." His eyes roved over her with open desire, but beneath it was something else — frustration, regret, need.
Talia rose smoothly, her gown whispering across the floor as she moved to leave. She turned back only once, her face serene, her voice calm. "Then you should have valued the fire before you tried to put it out."
Without waiting for his reply, she swept from the solarium, leaving him alone at the golden table.
Caelen stared after her, the taste of defeat bitter in his mouth. Yet still, he could not tear his gaze from the memory of her light as she left, glowing as she once had when she was a stranger.
The solarium was silent after Talia's departure, the golden plates untouched, the tea cooling in their cups. Caelen sat back in his chair, his hands clenched on the arms as though gripping them would hold together the pieces of his pride.
He told himself he had been generous. He had set the table, invited her as he once did in the days when they were young and unburdened. He had offered her warmth, familiarity, even affection. And yet she had left — poised, glowing, unshaken — as though he were nothing more than an echo of a past she had already forgotten.
His jaw tightened. She should still be mine.
But the image of her lingered — her golden eyes unflinching, her smile faint but untouchable. She looked as she had the first time he'd seen her, before the crown bound them, before duty turned them into strangers. A woman radiant and distant, captivating and beyond his reach.
And it gnawed at him.
Maris's face flickered in his mind — her freckles, her softness, the way she looked at him with devotion rather than distance. She gave him warmth, certainty, the future in her belly. Yet even as he told himself this was enough, his heart still burned with want for the woman who had just walked away.
He pressed his palms flat to the table, forcing the thought down. No. She isn't gone. She can't be. I only need to remind her of who we were… of what I once meant to her.
The lie tasted bitter, but he swallowed it all the same.
Because the truth — that Talia's light no longer burned for him — was something he could not yet face.
Caelen returned to his chambers with a storm still brewing in his chest. He dismissed the attendants with a wave, sinking heavily into the chair by the fire.
Maris rose from the couch when he entered, her silk gown clinging softly over the curve of her swelling belly. She approached with quiet grace, her hazel eyes searching his face. "What troubles you?"
He hesitated, pride warring with frustration. "The queen," he said at last. "I tried to reach her this morning. To remind her of what we once had. But she…" He exhaled sharply, dragging a hand through his hair. "She looks at me as though I were nothing. As though I never mattered."
Maris's heart tightened at his words — not for Talia, but for him. She lowered herself onto the arm of his chair, her hand resting lightly against his chest. "She is blind," she said gently, her voice full of conviction. "Blind to what she has, and to who you are. But I am not."
Her hand slipped lower, resting against the back of his neck as she leaned closer. "You are mine, Caelen. My king. My love. And she cannot take that from me."
For a moment, he only looked at her — freckles dusted across her pale cheeks, platinum hair falling loose around her shoulders, the devotion in her gaze unshaken. It was not the untouchable radiance that drew him as Talia once had, but there was comfort here, warmth he could not deny.
He caught her hand, pressing it briefly to his lips. "You've given me more than she ever did. More than she ever could."
Maris's eyes glistened at the words, her longing naked and raw. "And I always will. For you. For us. For the child."
She nestled against him, her head on his shoulder, and for a time the ache of the morning faded under her touch.
But deep inside, the image of Talia's unshaken glow lingered — a beauty beyond his reach, a fire he could no longer command.
And that, more than anything Maris offered, was what gnawed at him still.
Later that night, the fire in Caelen's chambers had burned low, casting the room in warm shadows. Maris lay curled against him, her head resting on his chest as his breathing slowed into the steady rhythm of sleep.
But she did not sleep.
Her hazel eyes were open, fixed on the flames as her fingers traced absent patterns along the swell of her belly. In the silence, the ache she never voiced stirred in her chest — the fear that no matter how much she gave him, no matter how fiercely she loved, she would always stand in the shadow of another woman.
Talia.
The queen's name was a wound she could not heal. Maris had seen the way his gaze lingered on her still, the way even his anger was laced with desire. Tonight had been no different. He had come to her after breakfast with Talia, seeking comfort — and she had given it, gladly, desperately — but still the queen lingered between them like a ghost.
Maris tightened her arms around herself, pulling closer to him as though she could hold him tighter than Talia's memory. "You're mine," she whispered into the night, her voice trembling. "You have to be mine."
Caelen stirred faintly, but did not wake.
Maris closed her eyes, tears prickling though she forced them back. She would not weep. Not when she had come this far, not when the child in her womb was proof that she had given him what Talia never could.
And yet, beneath her conviction, the truth gnawed at her. She was the mistress, the usurper, the woman who would always be seen as lesser — unless she made the world believe otherwise.
In the quiet of the firelit chamber, Maris's longing solidified into something sharper, heavier. She would not be second best. Not to Talia. Not to anyone.