Early the next morning, I was informed that Nameless had been temporarily housed in a small cabin beyond the temple’s outer barrier.
The message came from the duty ritual officer. His tone was calm, as though reporting something that had always been the obvious arrangement.
I nodded without comment. Yet in the very next moment, my feet turned toward the outer courtyard on their own.
The impulse to see him arrived too quickly—so quickly it felt like wake turbulence left behind by my present-day self, still lingering beneath the skin.
I didn’t know why I felt the need to see a stranger.
I only knew that if I didn’t go, the entire morning would lodge in my throat, unresolved.
Beyond the barrier, the wind was colder, carrying dampness from the distant forest. The cabin was built with restraint: four walls and a single east-facing window, as if proving—with minimal materials—that this stay had been permitted.
I paused briefly at the door and raised my hand to knock.
The one who opened it was not Nameless, but Sether.
He wasn’t wearing ceremonial robes—just travel attire, a shoulder guard catching the light. At first glance, he was less sharp than he had been in the council chamber, more like a blade returned to its sheath.
“Prince Sether,” I said without thinking.
He glanced at me, a faint smile flickering across his face, as though nudging some invisible distance back into a workable range.
“Here,” he said, “just call me brother.”
For a moment, I couldn’t tell whether this was camouflage or an attempt to lower the tension.
Prince was a position.
Brother was a relationship.
He drew us back from order into something closer to personhood—without letting anyone step out of line.
The room itself was simple. A sketch lay spread out on the table, unfinished, its lines clean. Nameless stood by the window, light tracing the side of his face, illuminating even the fine dust of the temple in the air. He looked at me without speaking.
I spoke first, my tone smoothed flat by the restraint imposed on me.
“I’ve come to confirm that your lodging is adequate.”
Sether answered for him, as though filing down the edges.
“It is. He’s just a civilian adventurer. He came in because he saw a drawing.”
My gaze dropped to the sketch on the table.
It was my face—not as I was now, with my current hair and adornments, but an earlier, simpler version. That simplicity was impossible to deny: the artist hadn’t copied me outright, but felt his way through memory to find the outline.
Nameless finally spoke, his voice low.
“In another city—on the other side—there was an old painting shop. A fragment of this drawing hung on the wall. I thought it was an illustration from some story. Later, I realized there was a draft of wind coming from inside the picture.”
He didn’t dramatize the experience.
He didn’t frame himself as chosen.
He simply stated the chain of cause and effect that had brought him here.
Sether added, neatly slotting him back into an intelligible category.
“He’s impulsive, that much is true. But he knows exactly what risks he’s taking. An adventurer isn’t the same as a fool.”
At the word impulsive, something in my chest gave a small jolt. It wasn’t a judgment—it was a word entirely opposite to me.
I had been trained to calculate before moving.
He moved knowing full well what he might lose.
I inclined my head, maintaining the distance appropriate to a princess.
“Your reason for entry has been recorded. Once the outer guard completes its route inspection, you’ll be free to move in and out of the barrier. The elves are, as ever, hospitable.”
Nameless met my gaze. His eyes neither clung nor avoided.
For the first time, I felt that our meeting in the council chamber had come too late. Though that had been our first encounter, I now had the strange sense that we’d known each other for far longer.
The moment that sensation surfaced, it was pressed down by the restraints of memory.
I could not give it a name here.
I shifted my gaze back to the sketch and chose the safest remark available.
“It’s well done.”
“Still a long way to go,” he said.
He seemed about to smile, then smoothed his mouth instead.
“I’m only chasing a direction.”
A direction—not a person.
He kept his words on the permitted side of the boundary.
Sensing the tension in the room, Sether opened an exit that wouldn’t invite objection.
“If you truly want to understand us, you shouldn’t look only at the temple. Next time, we’ll meet at the Tree of Memory.”
I looked up at him.
The Tree of Memory stood on the ridge of the inner forest—a place where the elves bound their choices and names. It was the source of elven life.
Not for wishes.
Not for offerings.
But for binding the decisions once made to the bark, letting time clarify them rather than lighten them.
“I’ll take him,” Sether said evenly. “If the princess is willing, join us then. Let him see the elves as they truly are—not the version preserved inside the temple.”
I didn’t answer immediately.
Any private interaction with an outsider could leave an unnecessary crease in the elders’ ledgers, something that might later be reported to my parents.
Still, I said, “Very well.”
The restraint did not stop me.
Perhaps because this wasn’t rebellion—merely an arrangement that could be labeled guidance.
I stepped back, restoring a safe distance.
“Three days from now, when the morning light reaches the ridge.”
Nameless nodded.
“I’ll be there.”
Before leaving, I looked at him once more, my voice calm as ever.
“Do not wander without permission.”
“I know where the lines are,” he replied.
I turned and stepped outside, my sleeve brushing the wind. They didn’t follow.
Crossing back through the barrier, I glanced over my shoulder at the cabin—as if to confirm it had truly existed, and wasn’t an exit I’d imagined.
On the way back to the palace, I replayed every word I’d spoken.
My tone hadn’t slipped.
My posture hadn’t crossed a boundary.
My arrangements hadn’t violated protocol.
And yet something deeper still radiated warmth—not emotion, but a familiarity forbidden from being named.
I knew that three days later, before the Tree of Memory, I would still have to wear the bearing of a princess.
And he would still be Nameless.
Neither of us would acknowledge where that familiarity came from.
Because in this memory, acknowledgment itself was not permitted.
When I returned to my chambers, Susan was waiting by the door. She looked up at me, as if confirming something she’d noticed, and finally spoke.
“Your Highness… for the first time since I’ve known you, the mirror of your heart has rippled.”
The moment the words left her mouth, her face drained of color. She bowed her head at once.
“I spoke out of turn. Please punish me.”
“There’s no need,” I said. “Why do you think so?”
She paused, then chose the safest possible answer—reciting it as though responding from the temple’s doctrine.
“Elves have always lived apart from the world. Our days rarely change. What happens outside, we often don’t know—and need not know. Even when news arrives, such as reports of the ‘Demon in the Mist’ appearing in the realm, that is the outsiders’ phrasing.”
She hesitated, then added the required distinction.
“And… the Fantasy World is not the Fantasy Continent. The two must not be confused. There is no confirmed evidence that any demon has appeared on the continent itself.”
I nodded, acknowledging her words.
She continued, carefully placing the rumor at a safe distance.
“It’s said the first ones entangled were the outsiders—the Demon in the Mist originally intended to attack their people. Whether the news is true is not for us to judge. The elders will decide.”
Every term was placed where doctrine allowed it: detachment, external information, outsourced judgment. Stability restored.
I didn’t disturb that stability. The restraint wouldn’t have allowed it anyway.
“You may rest,” I said.
She bowed and withdrew. When the door closed, only the lingering incense and the soft rustle of curtains remained.
I stood there for half a breath before realizing my hand was still pressed to my chest—over the violet rose mark beneath the skin.
The ripple was still there, but it smoothed out quickly.
As though a transparent hand had been laid over my heart, reminding me:
a princess does not need answers—only her place.
I turned, sat down, and evened my breathing.
Three days from now. Morning light. The Tree of Memory.
I will be there.
And until then—
I must polish the mirror until it reflects nothing but still water,
so that anyone who looks sees only calm clarity,
and never the ripples beneath.
ns216.73.216.10da2
and then Add to home screen.