“You sound like someone who already plans to rebuild them.”
Evelyne folded her hands behind her back, a gust of wind lifting the hem of her dress.
“Perhaps,” she said simply. “Someday.”
They walked a few more steps in silence, the gravel crunching softly beneath their boots.
“And what is it that youwant, Evelyne? If you could do anything?”
There was a time she might have answered more quickly. When being good at something had been enough. She’d known her purpose for as long as she could remember. But as she grew older, excellence had begun to feel hollow without direction. It was one thing to be skilled. Another entirely to use that skill for something greater.
“I want to be a good ruler,” she confessed at last. “I want to prevent war. Or… if that proves impossible, I want the smallest number of graves.”
Alaric tilted his head. “A good ruler? Just that?”
Her brows rose faintly. “Just? Women in my country don’t even have the right to teach in public halls, let alone hold office. Most are married before they finish their basic education—if they’re allowed one at all. The fact that I can even say I want to rule is more than most are permitted.”
Alaric nodded, his expression was thoughtful.
“I want to use what I’ve been given,” she continued. “Out of the awareness that I’m one of the few who can.”
“Those are wise plans.”
When she looked at him, he wasn’t looking at the gardens.
“And I’m privileged enough to make them more than that. Most people don’t have the luxury of planning. Not like we do.”
His gaze pressed against her composure, slipping past the edges of thought.
“I will have the means,” she continued. “Not to end every suffering. But to change something. To use power not for palaces, jeweled slippers or whatever gold-plated nonsense the court adores—but for fewer widows. Fewer orphans.”
There was a beat of silence before Alaric spoke, quieter now. “Are you afraid?”
Yes, she thought. It bloomed fast and sharp in her chest—an instinctive, animal truth. Yes, she was terrified. Of failing. Ofbeing powerless. Of being remembered only for the blood she couldn’t stop.
But her answer came out smooth, practiced.
“No.”
“I am,” he admitted.
Evelyne for a moment simply stared at him, unsettled by the disarming honesty. She felt a pang of something she couldn’t name. And then she smoothed it over, as always, folding the tremor away before it could show.
She slowed slightly, then glanced at him sidelong.
“And you? What do you want to achieve?”
Alaric was quiet for a moment, as though weighing whether to answer plainly—or honestly.
“If you’re set on fighting to spare the world from suffering,” he pondered, “then I suppose I’ll have to take up something else.”
He turned his face toward the fading light.
“I want the truth, Evelyne. I want transparency. No more cloaked decisions made in vaulted halls, no more history rewritten by the winners. I want a realm where knowledge isn’t a danger, and silence isn’t safety.”
A pause. Then, quieter: “I’m tired of living in a world that censors reality.”
She tilted her head, brows lifting. “So you’re one of those, then? The kind who thinks we’ve all been lied to?”
