Princess Isolde had always understood her duty to marry for alliance, not affection. Her engagement to Prince Alaric of a neighboring kingdom was a matter of politics, a promise sealed long before she was old enough to understand what love even meant. She told herself she was ready, that her heart would learn to obey the crown just as she had.

But then came Sir Gideon Vance—quiet, steadfast, and impossibly kind. He was everything her future husband was not, everything she was forbidden to want. At first, their conversations were simple: formal greetings, polite exchanges, the sort that passed unnoticed in the halls of power. Yet with every shared smile, every secret glance, something inside her began to shift.

He saw her not as a princess, but as a person—someone with fears, dreams, and a heart aching to be free. And as the days turned to weeks, the walls she had built around herself began to crumble. She tried to remind herself of her duty, of the crown waiting on her head, but the sound of his voice made all those promises blur into silence.

Love was never meant to be part of her story, and yet it was writing itself into every heartbeat, every breath, every stolen moment they shared. It was dangerous, impossible, and utterly inevitable.