The Forsaken Crown

The days that followed Lucien's arrival were a blur of rehearsed courtesies and simmering curiosity. I was expected to be dutiful—to sit quietly and smile politely as dignitaries murmured praise for my "poise" and my "beauty," as though those were the only virtues worth possessing.

But my mind was elsewhere.

I kept seeing him—the boy with the crooked smile and the lapis hair. Lucien had settled into the west wing of the palace, where visiting nobles resided, and every time I passed by, I found myself listening, hoping for his laugh or a scrap of conversation to filter through the halls. It was infuriating, this awareness of him, like an itch I couldn't reach.

Three days after our introduction, I found him in the gardens.

I hadn't been looking for him—not exactly. I often escaped to the royal gardens when the palace became too stifling, its endless corridors pressing down on me like walls that could shrink at will. That afternoon, the air was crisp, scented with the heavy perfume of wisteria and damp earth.

I turned a corner, and there he was.

Lucien stood beneath the wisteria tree, his head tilted back, eyes half-closed as though he were basking in the weak sunlight. His coat was carelessly thrown over a stone bench, and a book lay open at his feet, forgotten. He looked so unguarded, so free, that it startled me.

"You're staring," he said without opening his eyes.

I stiffened. "You really should learn to address me properly."

Lucien finally looked at me then, and his smile—crooked and infuriating—spread across his face like he knew something I didn't. "Forgive me, Princess Ophelia."

"What are you doing here?" I demanded, though it came out sounding more curious than stern.

"Enjoying the gardens. Is that a crime in Evirthnia?"

"No..," I muttered. Although it might as well have been one. "But it's unusual for a guest to wander unattended."

He shrugged. "I find escorts tiresome."

I narrowed my eyes. 

Lucien's laughter rang out as he gazed at my expression. His laughter was warm and surprising, and for a moment, I forgot to be annoyed.

"You're insufferable."

"And you're far too serious, Princess." He gestured to the spot beside him. "Sit. It won't kill you to take a moment for yourself."

I hesitated. It would kill me, I thought—not in the literal sense, but in the way that any step outside the lines drawn for me felt dangerous. It wasn't even the sitting. It was something I had planned to do anyway....it was the sitting with him. And yet, before I could think better of it, I sat.

Lucien grinned as though he'd won a great battle. "See? That wasn't so difficult."

I looked away, my cheeks warm. "What are you reading?"

"A book of poems. The kind your tutors would probably call frivolous."

"I wouldn't know. My tutors never allowed for such nonsense."

Lucien regarded me then, his expression softening in a way that made my chest tighten. "That's a shame, Princess. Everyone deserves a bit of nonsense."

For a moment, the garden was quiet save for the rustle of leaves and the distant calls of birds. I watched Lucien pick up his book and flip idly through its pages, as though he weren't sitting next to a princess who should've been anywhere but there—there with him.

And for the first time in my life, I felt as though I could breathe.

I didn't know it then, but that afternoon under the wisteria tree would mark the beginning of everything—the beginning of who I was, and who I would become.