The moonlight was soft that night.
It draped itself across the palace walls, spilling through corridors where silence reigned. Everyone was asleep everyone except her.
The princess sat by her window, chin resting on her palm, eyes wandering beyond the gardens where the faint glow of torches swayed like fireflies. Somewhere beyond that darkness, she knew he was still awake. She didn't know how she knew she just did.
She whispered his name under her breath, so quietly the night wouldn't hear it.
"Kaelion."
Down below, near the stables, Kaelion was polishing his sword not a knight's weapon, but a blade his father had passed down. He wasn't supposed to keep it in the palace, but he did. He liked the way moonlight touched steel honest, cold, and pure.
And tonight, as he lifted his gaze, he saw her.
A distant figure in white, framed by the window's glow.
For a moment, he thought he was dreaming.
Then she waved. Just once small, hesitant.
He froze.
The next morning, she came earlier than usual to the garden. Her gown shimmered like poured gold. She didn't bring her maid. Didn't bring her guard. Just herself.
"You saw me last night," she said, smiling faintly.
"I did," Kaelion replied, his voice calm as ever. "You shouldn't have been awake that late."
"And yet," she said softly, stepping closer, "you were."
He couldn't argue. The air between them was quiet again the kind of quiet that made hearts forget how to breathe.
She looked at him with curious eyes, searching for something behind his calmness. "Why do you always wear that look like you're hiding from the world?"
Kaelion's lips twitched. Not a smile, not a frown — something in between.
"Because the world doesn't always need to see what's beneath the helmet."
"You speak like a soldier," she teased.
"I speak like someone who's seen too much," he replied.
Their conversations grew longer with each passing day.
Sometimes it was under the orange glow of sunset; sometimes at the quiet edge of dawn.
She would ask him about the world beyond the palace the villages, the fields, the ruins of old wars.
He would tell her stories of people who never wore crowns but lived with hearts bigger than kings.
And as she listened, she began to see him not as a servant or a lost boy, but as something rare a soul the world could never replace.
But fate, ever watchful, never let beauty bloom without warning.
That evening, a guard spotted them near the garden gate.
The princess froze. Kaelion stepped forward, his expression unshaken. "She got lost. I was guiding her back."
The guard nodded, bowing deeply to her but his eyes lingered on Kaelion, suspicious, measuring.
It was the first whisper of danger the quiet before the storm.
That night, Kaelion sat beneath the same window where he'd first seen her, his sword resting beside him.
He didn't look up this time.
He knew if he did, he wouldn't be able to look away.
Somewhere in the palace tower, the princess closed her eyes, clutching her heart — and for the first time, she realized she was no longer lonely.