A white flag dressed up as tradition.
Each step she took was stiff with resistance, but God, she was beautiful.
Grace carved from rage.
A queen walking willingly toward her own cage.
There was no sound but the gravel biting beneath her heels.
Each crunch a drumbeat counting down to her undoing.
To my victory.
I stood at the altar, hands folded neatly in front of me, still as a statue, watching her like a man watching the world burn exactly how he planned.
She looked like a goddess carved from war.
Mine.
Always mine.
Our eyes met across the aisle.
And there it was.
That spark.
That taut, silent string strung between us—pulling, stretching, humming with the weight of everything we wouldn’t say.
She wasn’t crying.
She wasn’t smiling.
Her face flickered between fury and fear like a flame licking the edge of something about to snap.
But she didn’t look away.
Not once.
And that?
That was why I’d burn down kingdoms to keep her.
I extended my hand.
Not a gesture.
A command.
Wrapped in velvet.
Barbed in steel.
She hesitated.
Just a beat.
Long enough to be human.
