The wine glass hits the marble table with a sharp, ringing crack loud enough to make a few birds in the hedge scatter. The wine stains the white tablecloth. Red, like blood.
It's the only thing that looks honest in this whole manicured. goddamn garden.
"I've had enough of your bullshit, Jake."
He's leaning back against the stone railing like he's posing for a damn painting—perfect posture, hands in his coat pockets, long silver hair falling neatly over his shoulders like moonlight spun in silk. His coat's still spotless. Mine's wrinkled, sleeves rolled up from earlier when I nearly fought a guard who made a snide comment about my "future husband."
That's what they're calling him now. Future husband.
The joke writes itself.
It's been ten minutes, and guess what? All we've done is circle the drain, talking about how to get rid of the ugly mess we're both stuck in.
Honestly, that's the longest conversation we've had in years. And it's not like it was anything close to friendly. Just a war zone of blame and half-finished sentences.
Even now, he's pointing fingers like it's all my fault. The nerve of him.
I want to snap back, remind him we're both screwed here, but what's the point? We're both stuck. And somehow, neither of us knows how to get out without dragging the other down with us.
God, this is exhausting.
I glance at him again. His glasses reflect the garden lamps. That ever-polite sneer tugging at the corner of his mouth. The roses behind him are blooming—of course they are. Rose's favorite.
How fitting.
I've never liked him. Not once. Not even in the beginning when I was still trying to be civil. Still trying to pretend this whole arrangement wasn't a slow, public execution.
And I know—he doesn't like me either.
Not when we met at the Academy and he corrected me in front of the instructors. Not when he took Rose's side every time I dared roll my eyes at her naive little sermons. Not when I ruined her birthday tea on accident—and he called me "predictably crude."
That's how it always was. Me on one side of the garden wall, them on the other. I wasn't allowed in their softness. Didn't even want it. But it still stung, somehow. It always does when you're the only one standing in the rain.
"Keep your voice down," he says. "This is still a sacred garden."
"Screw your sacred garden." I glare at the top of the hedge behind him. Birds flutter out again.
He sighs, turns slightly, letting the sun catch on the silver chain around his neck engraved with the crest of the High Wizard. "Are you done dramatizing?" he asks now. "Or should I wait for the next act?"
I slowly look up. "Don't flatter yourself. If I wanted drama, I'd poison the roses behind you."
He turns to face me fully now, jaw tight, the muscles in his throat working like he's swallowing something hard. He's always looked like a statue—tall, beautiful, severe. Everything about him is meticulous. Crisp uniform. Gloves always clean. Words always sharp. The High Wizard's perfect son. His lip twitches. Not quite a smile. "You wouldn't dare. They're hers."
And there it is. The unspoken word between us.
Rose.
His confidant. The one he chooses. Always her.
"I don't want to marry you. I find you intolerable. We both know it." He says plainly, stepping closer, as if proximity will make the fact sting less. He has the voice of a scholar, the blood of the high Wizard. People listen when Jake speaks. They believe him. They call him gifted when he talks back.
I push back my chair. Stand. "The feeling's mutual, little Wizard."
He scoffs. "Then say something. God knows you've never had trouble using that mouth before."
That's when it cracks. I narrow my eyes. "You think I haven't?"
"You didn't protest—"
"Didn't I? Do you think my father asks for my thoughts? Do you think he cares? I've shouted, I've broken things, I've threatened to burn his office down. Did I not do enough? Or is it just easier for everyone when I'm the difficult one again?"
He stops. That part, at least, hits him.
"I'm always the one yelling. I'm always the one blamed for the noise, for the trouble. But why the hell can't you ever raise your voice? Why do I have to be the one who tears down the altar when your father built it?" He watches me with those cool gray eyes, lips parted like he wants to speak, but I don't let him. "What?" I taunt. "Too afraid to disappoint your father? Scared he'll cut you off from your magic lessons and your tidy little world of books and prophecy?"
"You think I'm afraid?" he hisses, stepping closer, close enough that I can see the storm brewing in those gray eyes.
"Yes, Jake," I whisper stepping forward, bare feet brushing the garden path. "I think you're a coward." My heels sunk into the soft dirt earlier and I kicked them off. It makes me feel unbalanced now, shorter than him. I hate that.
"Coward? Me?" He laughs. Humorless. "You know what?" he says. "You deserve someone just as miserable as you."
Miserable? Is that really what he thinks? That I'm just… this?
"And you deserve Rose," I snap. "She can braid your silver hair and pray for your spine to grow in."
His mouth twists into something between a smirk and a snarl. "You're unbelievable." Jake mutters, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose with one impatient finger. "You always have to go for the throat, don't you?"
We're both breathing hard now. Too close. The garden is quiet for a moment. Just the wind shifting through rose leaves, the sharp citrus of crushed lemongrass underfoot. But it's never quiet for long when we're together. I cross my arms and step back, creating space between us that still feels too close. "Yeah? Well, maybe if you'd stop leaving it so exposed, I wouldn't have to."
He laughs dryly. "It is a tradition at this point."
"Yeah. A tradition. Right up there with biting and shoving you into fountains."
His eyes flick to mine, and for just a second—I see it. That memory of something old. We both remember being those stupid kids who couldn't leave each other alone, no matter how hard we tried.
But it's gone as quick as it came. And we're back in the mess. Same tradition. Same war.
He huffs out another one of those dry, bitter laughs, shaking his head like he can't believe we're here—again. His hand drops from his glasses, fingers curling at his side like he's holding back saying something worse. "Guess some traditions are just too stubborn to die."
He is not wrong. We've been at this for years. A full decade of rolling our eyes and barely tolerating each other's existence. Since we were kids, really. I once shoved him into the fountain because he corrected my grammar mid-sentence. I was eight. He told his father I bit him. I totally did.
He called me "feral" with his nose in the air like I was a stray cat he accidentally let into the manor.
I called him "sanctimonious silver-stick." Honestly still proud of that one.
We never stopped.
The names just got sharper as we got older, like we learned new weapons and couldn't wait to test them on each other. But the rhythm? Always the same. Clashing in narrow hallways, brushing shoulders like it wasn't on purpose (it always was). Cold stares across absurdly long banquet tables, surrounded by people too polite or too bored to care. And at public events? Oh, we mastered the art of smiling while slicing each other to pieces.
I hated how easily he brushed me off. He hated how loudly I refused to be brushed at all.
And yet somehow, our fathers—my Duke of a father with too much pride, and his manipulative Wizard of a father—thought this was a good match.
A marriage. Between us.
A political alliance.
A public show of unity between steel and sanctity.
Like the universe hadn't already suffered enough.
My father calls it redemption.
That's his favorite word when it comes to me these days. He says it with that exhausted look in his eyes, as if I've dragged the family name through gutters I was born in. A way to "clean" my name. To make the nobles stop whispering. As if binding me to the wizard's spawn will suddenly make people forget I once threatened to hang a nobleman.
My father thinks he's doing this for me. He says, "You'll thank me someday. You'll be untouchable, girl, once you stand beside the His son." As if being shackled to a man who's hated me since childhood is some sort of mercy.
I know Jake's father. That soft-spoken bastard, always quoting stars and ancient texts as if they came to him in dreams. People fall for it. They call him mysterious like it's romantic.
But I've looked in his eyes. Pale as ice and twice as dead. And behind them? There's nothing dreamy. His words are seeds. They bloom weeks later, months later, right into the hearts of other men.
My father swears this marriage idea was his own. His own. Please. The wizard probably whispered it to him. Poisoned him with it, sweetly.
Because he doesn't want unity.
He wants control.
And what better leash than a Halewynn daughter?
Our bloodline is the highest a name can go in this kingdom. Not just noble—pure. Our name is carved into the foundation stones of the capital. The Halewynns built this country from bone and fire, and no one can ever manufacture that kind of legacy.
And I am the only daughter.
That's why this match matters to him. Not love. Not peace.
He knows Jake would rather marry Rose. I see it. I'm not blind. She's the safer bet. Kind. Devout. Easy to lead. She was taken in by my family when her parents died. Some distant cousin, barely tied by blood, but her family had worked with ours for generations. Loyal retainers. Trusted. Reliable.
So when tragedy struck, my father didn't hesitate to bring her into our estate. Gave her a room beside mine. Gave her our name, unofficially, like it cost him nothing. She ate with us, trained with us, laughed under our roof. She called him Father. Called me sister, though she never quite wore it like it fit.
I saw the way the servants looked at her. The way guests praised her gentle grace, her perfect posture, her delicate understanding of court etiquette. Always in soft blues. Always hands folded. Always quiet and smiling like she didn't have a single thought of rebellion in her pretty little head.
And Jake—
Well, Jake always preferred her company. Always sat beside her at formal dinners. Always asked her for her thoughts when we were all forced to study together.
I don't know what they are. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. Maybe that in-between space where devotion looks too much like love to tell the difference.
I don't know. I don't care.
What I know is this: I am the real blood. And his father will force Jake to marry me for that reason alone.
Because blood like mine doesn't come twice. And even a holy man knows when to get his hands dirty for something that rare.
He's playing the long game.
And he might win.
"One week," I say, dragging my fingers through my hair like maybe if I tug hard enough, I can rip the whole thing out and make this nightmare stop. "One week until they slap that damn ring on my finger."
The words taste like ash in my mouth. I can't even take it anymore. No, scratch that—I won't take it anymore. It twists my gut every time I think about it. How I fought. How I screamed. How I tried everything I could to stop this from happening—and it all just… slipped through my fingers.
I feel sick.
Because if I have to walk down that aisle, it's not going to be because I agreed.
It's going to be because I lost.
"You act like I wanted this arrangement," Jake says, pacing away from me with that tight, clipped rhythm of someone trying not to lose it. His hand rakes through his stupid, flawless hair—of course it's perfect, even when he's pissed off. "You think my father asked me? You think I got a vote before he paraded the proposal around?"
I cross my arms, not budging. "I don't see you doing anything to stop it."
He stops mid-step. Turns his head. "Excuse me?"
"You could speak to him," I say flatly. "Tell him no. You know, have a spine."
He whirls on me. The dying sunlight hits the rim of his glasses, throwing that flash of gold right into my eyes. His face is flushed now—not with embarrassment. With frustration.
"And what?" he snaps. "Be like you? Storm into the council chamber with blood in your mouth and ash on your sleeves? Threaten to throw another noble into the moat if they look at you sideways?"
"Better than hiding behind your father's robes like a coward," I shoot back, stepping forward. The distance between us shrinks to nothing. "Or is it easier to let them push you around and pretend you're fine with it?"
"I'm not fine with it!" he shouts. His voice cracks at the edges—not weak, but unguarded. Too loud for the garden. I can practically feel the old stone walls catch the echo and toss it back at us.
"Then do something!" My voice goes sharp. It jumps out of me before I can reel it back in. Louder than I meant. Hot and a little too raw. I hate how it echoes. How it sounds like I care. "I am done doing everything for both of us while you're doing nothing!" I spit the words out, feeling the heat rising in my chest like a damn wildfire. Because I'm sick of carrying this mess on my own. Sick of pretending that if I just try harder, he'll step up too. But he doesn't. He won't.
And I'm tired—so damn tired of being the only one who fights.
He falls quiet. Just… breathing. Hard. His chest rises and falls like he's been sprinting, not yelling. His silver hair shifts slightly in the breeze, like even the wind isn't sure if it wants to stick around. His glasses have slipped a little down the bridge of his nose. He doesn't fix them. "Fine," he says, "You want me to do something? I will. But don't expect it to end clean or pretty. Don't blame me when things turn ugly."
Jake doesn't even give me a chance to say a damn word. He starts walking away like he's already done with this conversation.
"Ugly?" I mutter watching his back. "What the hell is he gonna do anyway?"
Because that's the question, isn't it? When the so-called 'perfect son' says he's about to shake the whole damn foundation, what kind of mess are we really signing up for?
I stand there, arms crossed, trying to figure out if I should be scared or just really, really pissed off.