*Ana*
The rose lies crushed between us—petals scattered like fallen tears, their blush already browning where boot leather has ground them into the earth. The sweet perfume of bruised flowers mingles with the bitter tang of sap bleeding from broken stems. No one moves. The world has crystallized into this single, breathless moment where even the wind holds still.
Pendwick's hand hovers in the empty space where the flower once rested, fingers still curved as if cradling something precious. His face is a canvas of bewilderment and hurt, cranberry red eyes wide with the shock of witnessing something he shouldn't have seen—something intimate and raw all at once. A muscle jumps in his jaw as he swallows hard, the sound audible in the garden's sudden silence.
I remain trapped in the circle of Mykhol's arm, his body radiating heat against my back like a banked fire threatening to blaze. His breath comes too fast at my neck, each exhale sending unwelcome shivers racing down my spine like ice water over heated skin. The scent of him—tobacco and pepper and something darker, mustier—wraps around me like smoke, filling my lungs until thinking becomes difficult.
When I finally turn, the movement is deliberate and controlled, silk rustling against skin. I need to see his face, need to understand what storm just tore through our peaceful afternoon.
What I find steals the breath from my lungs.
Mykhol looks... undone. His usually pristine hair falls in disheveled waves across his forehead, dark crimson strands catching the afternoon light like spilled wine. His coat hangs askew, silver buttons glinting through misaligned holes as if he dressed in desperate haste. This is not the composed courtier who glides through palace halls like he owns them, smile perfectly calibrated, every gesture calculated for maximum effect. This is someone who has been running, searching, hunting—someone who has torn through hedgerows and abandoned all pretense of dignity.
But it's his eyes that make my chest tighten with something I don't want to name. In that unguarded instant before he realizes I'm watching, I see it—raw, desperate fear. Not anger. Not possession. Pure, animal terror, as if he's found me bleeding on a battlefield instead of simply talking to another man. His pupils are dilated despite the bright sunlight, and there's a tremor in his hands that he can't quite control.
The vulnerability in his vermillion gaze is so naked, so achingly different from the always-in-control Mykhol I know, that something inside me responds before I can stop it. My heart stutters, a treacherous warmth spreading through my chest even as my mind recoils from the intensity of his need.
Then—like a curtain falling—it's gone.
The mask slides back into place with practiced ease, and Mykhol's mouth curves into that familiar, too-wide smile. The transformation is so complete, so sudden, that I might have imagined the broken man I glimpsed beneath. But the air still tastes of his panic, metallic and sharp.
"Oh come now," he laughs, the sound bright and brittle as shattered crystal. His hands find my waist with proprietary ease, spinning me in a half-circle as if we're dancing at a ball instead of standing among crushed roses and shattered moments. "You looked like a damsel in distress, cousin. I had to play the hero."
The casual contact sends electricity racing along my nerves, and I hate how my body responds—the way my skin warms under his touch like kindling catching flame, the way my pulse quickens despite my mind's protests. I step away quickly, brushing at my sleeve where his fingers lingered, trying to erase the phantom sensation of his skin against mine.
He releases me with a theatrical flourish, bowing mockingly toward Pendwick with all the grace of a court performer. But I catch the way his fingers curl into fists at his sides, knuckles white with tension.
"Did I interrupt some courtly romance? Forgive me—my timing has always been abysmal."
"Courtly Romance? Cousin," I shake my head. "That was not funny, you scared me. Do not do that." I say flatly, finding myself growing composed again. Of course it was a joke. THis is Mykhol after all.
But even as I speak, I can't quite meet his eyes. Something warns me away from them. The memory of that desperate fear lurks too close to the surface, making my chest tight with an emotion that doesn't sit well. The way he looked at me—as if I might disappear if he blinked—still echoes in the space between my ribs.
Mykhol's expression shifts, the theatrical mask slipping for just a moment before snapping back into place like a rubber band. His eyes narrow as they fix on Pendwick, who has been standing frozen like a deer caught in torchlight, chest rising and falling with shallow, rapid breaths.
"How strange that I keep finding you alone with my dear cousin, Lord Pendwick?" The question slides out smooth as silk, but there's steel beneath it—sharp enough to cut. His head tilts with predatory curiosity, and I can almost see him cataloging every detail: Pendwick's flushed cheeks, my disheveled hair, the crushed flower between us. "Unmarked. Unchaperoned. In a secluded corner of the gardens. Again. It's almost as if you're trying something. "
Pendwick's face flushes crimson, color climbing his throat like spilled wine. "I—we were merely—" He stammers, his hands fidgeting with the cuffs of his sleeves until the fabric begins to fray. "Her Empress and I were simply enjoying the afternoon air and discussing—"
"The very same spot as last time, I notice." Mykhol takes a step closer to Pendwick, and I watch the younger lord shrink back instinctively, shoulders curving inward. "How... coincidental. Tell me, what discussion requires such repeated privacy? Such careful isolation from proper company?"
"Mykhol, please—" I begin, but his focus remains laser-sharp on Pendwick, predator scenting weakness.
The accusation hangs in the air like smoke from a funeral pyre. I can see how this must look—me, disheveled from my earlier panic, standing close enough to Pendwick that propriety would question our intentions. The crushed rose petals at our feet might as well be evidence of some illicit liaison.
But it wasn't like that at all. It was harmless. And I find I need to clarify.
"Lord Pendwick is hardly a stranger," I start, but the words sound weak even to my own ears.
Pendwick straightens slightly, finding a thread of courage. His voice wavers but holds. "Sir, I would never—Her Empress's honor is beyond reproach. I was merely—"
"Were you?" Mykhol's voice drops to something dangerous, quiet as a blade being drawn. He moves with predatory grace, placing himself between Pendwick and me like a wall of crimson silk and barely leashed violence. "Because from where I stood, it appeared you were taking certain... liberties with my cousin."
"That's enough." The words burst from Pendwick with more force than I expected, though his voice still trembles. "I won't stand here and let you imply—"
"You don't mind if I steal her away for a moment, do you, Lord Pendwick?" Mykhol cuts him off smoothly. "Family business."
The dismissal lands like a slap. Pendwick's face flushes. His eyes dart to mine, pleading, asking for permission to stay, to fight, but Mykhol's presence fills the space like a storm cloud.
"I..." Pendwick's voice cracks slightly. "Perhaps I should—"
"Yes," Mykhol agrees with a warmth that doesn't reach his eyes. "Perhaps you should."
Pendwick takes a shaky step backward, then another. His gaze lingers on me with something like apology, like defeat. "Your Empress, I... I hope you'll forgive any impropriety on my part."
"There was none," I say quickly, desperately, but he's already retreating.
"Of course," he says quietly, the words hollow with resignation. He bows stiffly, avoiding Mykhol's triumphant stare. "Good day to you both."
I watch him go with a sinking heart, noting how his shoulders slump with each step, how he carefully doesn't look back. The fallen rose lies crushed beneath his polished shoes as he disappears around the hedge—beautiful, ruined, forgotten.
Mykhol waits until Pendwick's retreating form vanishes completely before turning to me with gleeful satisfaction gleaming in his eyes. The transformation is immediate and unsettling—gone is the cold authority he wielded against Pendwick, replaced by something that feels far more like a child winning an argument.
I can't help but find it childish. Did Mykhol just do that to make him leave?
"It is only Pendwick, cousin," I say, as if that explains everything. I could understand if it was someone like Duke Zaver or those other nobles that pestered me before. But Pendwick wasn't anything like them.
He was, I suppose, my friend now.
"Only Pendwick?" Mykhol's laugh is soft and utterly without humor. "Ana, darling, 'only Pendwick' is like a man dying of thirst looking at water. 'Only Pendwick' was standing close enough to count your eyelashes."
"What do you mean?" My brows furrow, genuinely confused by the venom in his voice. "That's just how Pendwick is." Nervous, earnest, kind in a way that costs him nothing. "And he wasn't that close to me. Pendwick was only trying to put the rose in my hair."
The memory catches me—how he'd been willing to touch my silver strands, how gentle his hands had been. Something shuffles in the grass, and I look up to find vermilion eyes watching me with a strange expression, unreadable as deep water.
Mykhol opens his mouth, then chooses to close it, jaw working silently. When he speaks again, his voice has changed, become something sharper.
"Are we really on a first-name basis with him now?" His voice drips mock offense, but I catch the sharp edge beneath the teasing. "Pendwick, is it? No more 'Lord'? Just like that?"
I sigh, plucking a bruised petal from my sleeve. The velvet softness crumbles between my fingers. "It's easier in private. It avoids unnecessary ceremony."
"Hmm." His hand settles on my lower back—a touch that should be innocent but feels like a brand burning through silk. Too firm, too claiming, too familiar. My skin tingles traitorously under his palm. "So he gets to call you Anastasia, then?"
The way he says my name makes something flutter strangled in my chest. I force myself to meet his gaze, trying to ignore how the morning light turns his vermilion eyes to liquid fire.
"Well, yes."
He exhales slowly through his fangs, deliberately, the sound barely above a whisper but somehow deafening in the garden's hush. "You're making me jealous on purpose, then."
The accusation is absurd enough to startle a laugh from me. "Jealous? Mykhol, don't be ridiculous."
But even as I speak, I can't deny a small part of my chest twists up at the idea as if curling at his words. The knowledge that I affect him, that I can make Mykhol pout and huff…but why should that satisfy me? Why would I want him to feel–
He tilts his head, studying me with unnerving intensity. "There's no need for pretense between us, cousin."
I take a step through the dew-heavy grass, desperate to break the charged atmosphere between us. But he follows like a shadow, never letting me get far enough away to breathe freely.
"Pendwick and I are simply—"
"I don't come here to talk about him. Ana." The words crack like a whip, all pretense of humor vanishing. His jaw clenches, and for a moment I see that desperate fear again—quickly hidden but unmistakably there.
The silence stretches taut as a wire. Even the birds have gone quiet, as if sensing the dangerous current running between us.
"I wanted to see you," he says, voice dropping to something softer, more vulnerable. "I've missed you."
The admission hits like a physical blow. My chest tightens at his words. He missed me? Me? I don't why but the makes my heart pitch up again, as if like a bird fluttering higher. I try to keep myself steady, pushing the emotion down.
"You've been busy," I manage, finding composure though it tastes bitter on my tongue. "Too busy entertaining half the court."
The remainder of his recent... companions sends an unwelcome spike through me. Girls like Lady Katya, with her dangerous smile, linger like shadows in my mind. But Mykhol has always taken to spending time with others. Beautiful girls with shiny red hair and brilliant red eyes. Purebloods. Mykhol has always been popular, especially with women who hang on his every word, who touch his arm, and laugh at his jokes.
I've always known this, accepted it as part of who he is. Yet seeing them constantly at his side lately fills my chest with a small, tight pressure I don't want to examine too closely.
"Everyone has always sought your company," I say, softer than intended, betraying more hurt than I want to admit. "Never mine. I missed you too."
His eyes flash with something that might be triumph. He moves closer, close enough that his sleeve brushes mine with each breath, and I have to fight not to step away—or worse, step closer.
"Don't look at me like that." His grin turns sharp, predatory, showing too many teeth. "It's not a crime to be well-liked, you know. Perhaps if you came with me more often—"
"I don't have time for such things." The words come out strangled, defensive. I grip the edge of my shawl like armor, silk bunching between my fingers. "I have too much responsibility. I'm not you, Mykhol. You've always been good at court games and social dancing. Even now..." I swallow, biting down on bitter memories of watching him charm others while I stood aside, forgotten.
His lips curve in a slow, dangerous smile that makes my skin prickle with warning. "It feels nice when you pay attention to me."
That tone—half-flirtation, half-warning—makes heat pool in places it shouldn't. I cross my arms defensively, trying to create some barrier between us, but the movement only seems to amuse him more.
"If this is just about wanting attention, I have more important things to think about," I say, grasping for the anger that usually comes so easily. But it feels distant now, muffled by the electric tension crackling between us like heat lightning.
"Like the court?" He's teasing, but I hear the strain underneath—a tightness that suggests he's not as unaffected as he pretends.
"Yes," I snap, finally finding my footing. "They don't listen. Half of them act like I'm ornamental. Four Bulgeons are dead, and the delegations have stalled. The Bulgeon chief himself still won't speak to us."
"You're beautiful when you're in command mode."
I stop walking so abruptly that he nearly collides with me. My spine goes rigid, and when I turn to face him, I see my own frustration reflected in his widening eyes.
"Cousin."
"What?" Mykhol lifts a brow, pressing his lips in too quick, too defensively. "I am listening." But the sound of his tone is anything but sincere. He sounds like he is teasing, a soft laugh in his tone.
"No, you're not." The words taste bitter. "I don't have time for your games today, Mykhol. I am not in the mood."
He's at my side instantly, hands brushing imaginary dust from my sleeve with touches that linger too long, burn too bright. Each contact sends unwanted fire racing through my veins.
"And what will put you in the mood?" His grin turns wicked, vermilion eyes sparkling with mischief and something darker. The innuendo hits me like cold water, and I blink stupidly at him.
"The mood? What—" I don't understand the private joke dancing in his expression, and the confusion only adds to my growing frustration. "I don't need you here playing word games. I need you to take things seriously."
"I am serious," he murmurs, stepping into the breath of space between us. His voice drops to velvet, intimate and warm. "About us."
"Us? What are you—" But I stop, the conversation suddenly feeling absurd and wasteful. Time I don't have for Mykhol's endless loops and riddles. "There's a court in chaos. Admiral Nugen's left to track the Pave trade route. There's blood in the sand and ink drying on silence. We're not moving forward—"
He groans softly, as if I'm reciting love poetry instead of cataloging disasters. "Gods, you're exquisite when you talk about bloodshed and diplomacy."
His hand starts its familiar drift—down my arm, fingers trailing fire, then toward my hip with proprietary ease. The casual claim in his touch makes my breath hitch even as my mind rebels against it.
"If you're not going to help," I step back sharply, breaking the contact that threatens to unravel my carefully maintained control, "then leave."
The smile drops from his face like a stone into still water. For one unguarded moment, I see hurt flash across his features—raw and real as a fresh wound. The mask cracks, revealing something desperate underneath before he catches it, forces it back behind practiced charm.
"You're so tense lately." His voice turns honey-smooth, coaxing, but there's an edge now, something strained. "You should let yourself unwind. What if we went out—just the two of us? A dinner. Or there's a concert in the capital next week. You liked the quartet at the coronation, didn't you?"
"I haven't had time to think about music." The words come out flat, exhausted. I turn toward the hedge, letting the wind carry the scent of bruised roses between us. "I've been organizing burial rites for men whose names weren't even released before the next ones died."
"And still you manage to look perfect." His fingers brush my temple, tucking an errant strand of silver hair behind my ear with devastating gentleness that makes my chest ache.
I flinch away from the contact, hating how my body betrays me—first responding to his touch, then recoiling from my own response. The conflicting sensations make me just want to leave and go back inside altogether.
His hand hovers in the air where my cheek had been, fingers slowly curling into a loose fist. He chuckles as if it means nothing, but I catch the flash of something darker in his eyes.
"You're the Empress. You should dress like one." He recovers smoothly, that practiced smile sliding back into place. "I was thinking—we could have matching tunics again, like the night of your coronation. You in silver. I could wear charcoal. Or gold, even, to draw out the beautiful color in your eyes."
"New clothes? Are you serious?" Disbelief colors my voice sharp as vinegar. "I'm not buying gowns when we need to manage the treasury. Food for Pave, restocking the armory—"
"Then I'll have one made for you." He waves dismissively, but his gaze drifts to my shawl with an intensity that makes my skin prickle. There's something almost pained in his expression, as if he's remembering another gift, another time I rejected what he offered. "You don't even have to know. Think of it as another gift."
His fingers drift to his earrings, worrying the delicate silver with unconscious agitation. "I'll make sure you keep it this time."
"Mykhol." His name comes out strangled, my composure finally cracking. "You're not hearing me." I face him fully, frustration and something dangerously close to desperation prickling behind my eyes. "Everything is stretched thin—supplies, diplomacy, patience. I don't need silks and symphonies. I need solutions."
He shrugs with infuriating calm, but I can see the tension in his shoulders, the way his jaw works silently. "You need a distraction."
"No." Ice slips into my voice, sharp enough to cut. "You want to be my distraction."
The accusation hangs between us like a drawn blade. Something shifts in his expression—calculating, measuring, then smoothing back into that practiced charm.
"But wouldn't it be nice, cousin?" The word falls from his lips like a caress, soft with manufactured emotion. "To have something that's just for us? Like we used to have? Before you went running to Dawny, or started letting people like Sir Pendwick bother you?"
"He isn't bothering me. Pendwick is helping Father while he's—"
"Don't you miss it?" His vermillion eyes darken, boring into mine with uncomfortable intensity. "Just being the two of us?"
MMy body responds before my mind can intervene—a flush racing up my spine, heat pooling in my chest at the memory of those five long years when it was only him. When I thought Father and Nicoli had abandoned me, when Mykhol was the only warmth in my cold world. When his attention felt like sunlight after months of winter.
But alongside the treacherous warmth comes the pain—the isolation, the confusion, the way I lost myself in his orbit until I couldn't tell where he ended and I began.
I don't answer. Can't answer without betraying too much.
He moves closer, drawn by some invisible force until he's brushing against my side like gravity itself bends him toward me. The contact sends unwanted electricity through my nerve endings, making my skin sing with awareness.
"You've been slipping away from me lately."
"I've been working," I manage, voice rougher than intended. "I barely have time to think nowadays. Everything is just... I am Empress. I have to be perfect. I have to show them I can do this. All of it. Not parties, not social engagements. I don't have time..."
"Not even for me?" Something flickers across his face—hurt? disappointment?—before smoothing back into practiced charm. "You seemed to have time for Pendwick's company today, though."
The accusation hits like a physical blow, heat flaring in my chest like touched gunpowder.
"Pendwick happened to be in the garden," I say firmly. "We decided to talk. It was coincidence, nothing more."
I glance toward the gate where Pendwick disappeared, wishing with sudden, fierce longing that he'd stayed. That his gentle brown eyes were here to anchor me instead of drowning in the storm of Mykhol's intensity.
"I don't want to hear about Pendwick." Steel enters his voice, sharp and warning. He steps forward, and my breath stutters as something in his posture shifts—still smiling, but tighter, more predatory. Like a wolf baring its teeth. "I want to talk about what's happening between us. I know you feel it too. And I want you to know that I—"
"What us? We are just cousins," I repeat, but the words feel hollow even to me, echoing strangely in the garden's hush. "People are dying, Mykhol. I am responsible for—"
"You think I don't know that?" His mask slips entirely now, revealing something raw and desperate underneath. His hands shake as he runs them through his disheveled hair. "I'm trying to help. Make this easier for you. Make you happy. Just let me show you that I can–"
"No." I meet his gaze directly, drawing on reserves of strength I didn't know I possessed. "You're being selfish. I don't need this right now. Please go."
I turn away from him, arms wrapping around my chest like armor. "I think better when I'm alone. Leave."
Something shifts in the air behind me—a change so sudden and sharp it makes my skin prickle with warning. When he speaks, his voice carries an edge I've never heard before, dangerous and final.
"No." The word cuts through the garden's stillness like a blade. "You can't just tell me to leave anymore, Ana."
My spine stiffens at his tone, but I force myself to remain calm. This is Mykhol. He gets dramatic when he's upset—always has. He doesn't mean anything by it. He's just... being Mykhol.
But when I turn back, the look in his vermillion eyes makes my breath catch. There's something wild there, something unhinged that I've never seen before. Not anger exactly, but something rawer, more desperate.
"Look at me when I'm speaking to you."
The command cuts through the air like a blade, and before I can process the words or the tone, his fingers are on my chin—firm, demanding, tilting my face up with enough force to still me completely. Not harsh enough to bruise, but enough to trap me, to make it crystal clear who holds the power in this moment.
The world crystallizes around that single point of contact. His skin burns against mine, and I can feel the tremor in his fingers—control barely leashed, something wild and desperate straining against the bonds of civility like a caged animal.
My chest locks tight. Not from fear—not exactly—but from something older, deeper. A bell rings in my head that recognizes danger even when it wears a familiar face, and that understands something is wrong and deadly. A part of me curls inward, trying to make itself small, invisible, untouchable.
"Let go." My voice comes out quiet but steady, controlled despite the chaos erupting inside me like a storm breaking against cliffs.
A heartbeat passes. Another. Long enough to count the seconds, to catalog the way his thumb brushes against my jaw with possessive familiarity, as if he has every right to touch me this way. As if my body belongs to him by some unspoken law.
Then—slowly, reluctantly—he releases me.
I step back carefully, deliberately, as if sudden movement might trigger something worse. My spine remains straight, my expression calm as still water, but inside something fundamental has shifted. A tremor where there used to be certainty.
He laughs—soft, forced, the sound scraping against raw nerves as he tries to smooth the jagged edges of what just happened. "You're so tense lately. I wish you'd learn to relax and let go again. It's me, after all. You trust me, remember?"
It's just Mykhol, I tell myself desperately. He does this kind of thing—gets intense, gets possessive. It doesn't mean anything. He's always been dramatic, always pushed boundaries. This is normal for him.
But my body disagrees. Every nerve ending screams that something is wrong, that the familiar has become foreign and dangerous.
"Ana?" Mykhol asks, lips turning into that soft smile, the one he's always made just for me. "Did you hear me? I said you trust me, right?"
Of course I do. Of course I trust him. He's Mykhol. He saved me from isolation, made me feel less alone. This is just him being... him. Isn't it?
But when he steps forward again, movements slower this time, more careful, and his fingers brush a loose strand of hair behind my ear with devastating gentleness, I do flinch.
Just a flicker. Barely more than a caught breath.
But I feel it. And from the way his entire body goes still against mine, so does he.
Something cracks in his expression—confusion, hurt, a flash of something almost like panic. His hand hovers near my face, trembling slightly, before dropping to his side like a dead weight.
"Hey." He tries for that crooked smile, but it doesn't reach his eyes, which have gone wide and uncertain. "It's just me. You know that, right? Just me."
The desperation in his voice makes my chest ache with something complicated and unwanted. This is Mykhol—my cousin, my constant companion, the person who pulled me from five years of isolation. He's never hurt me. He wouldn't hurt me. He's just... he gets like this sometimes. Intense. Overwhelming. It's nothing new.
So why does every instinct I have scream at me to run?
I try to rationalize it away—he's upset, he's being dramatic, this is just how he shows he cares. But my body won't listen to reason. My skin still burns where he touched me, my heart hammers against my ribs like a caged bird, and something deep in my chest keeps ringing alarm bells I can't silence.
Stop it, I tell myself. You're overreacting. It's Mykhol. He does this stuff. You know it's nothing.
But the words feel hollow, unconvincing even to myself. I swallow hard, willing the shake in my hands to still.
"I should get back to work," I manage, the words coming out steady despite the chaos in my chest.
I don't wait for his response. I turn and walk away, each step measured and deliberate despite the storm writhing under my ribs. My arms fold across my body—not from cold, but from something else entirely. Something that feels like the world tilting off its axis.
He doesn't follow immediately. I can feel his gaze burning into my back like a physical weight, tracking my retreat with an intensity that makes my shoulders tense involuntarily. The silence stretches between us, thick with unspoken accusations and shattered assumptions.
At the garden's edge, I pause. My hand rises almost without conscious thought, fingers brushing the spot on my jaw where he held me. The skin feels different somehow—marked in a way that makes my stomach churn with recognition I don't want to face.
Behind me, I hear the soft crush of footsteps on grass, the whisper of fabric as he finally moves. But he doesn't call out, doesn't demand I return or explain myself. The silence feels heavier than words would have.
Something has shifted between us, fundamental and irreversible. A line has been crossed that I didn't even know existed until I found myself on the wrong side of it.
For the first time in my life, Mykhol—my compaion, my constant—feels like a stranger wearing a familiar face.
And I have absolutely no idea what that means? What just happened? Or what I'm supposed to do about it.