Chapter 265

Velesia

I slide off the bed, the movement silent, practiced. The morning light, pale and hesitant, filters through the window and falls across the sleeping form of His Highness. It catches the gold of his hair, the relaxed line of his shoulder.

For a moment, I just stand there, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest.

I sigh. The sound is too loud in the quiet room.

The feeling is a familiar ache by now, settled deep behind my ribs. Longing.A quiet, desperate envy toward the others, who can reach for him without chains.

But I am a Coilsong.

Our purpose is etched in bone and blood and centuries of oath-keeping: We protect royalty. We are the shield in the shadow, the strike from the dark. Our loyalty is our identity. These softer, messier feelings I’ve let myself develop... they are a luxury my lineage cannot afford. An indiscipline.

In fact, I never should have let myself slip into this relationship with His Highness in the first place. It was a failure of duty, a confusion of roles. A protector should not also be a lover. The two mandates war with each other, one demanding distance and clarity, the other begging for closeness and compromise.

And yet...

My gaze traces the curve of his jaw, the way his hand rests open and vulnerable on the pillow.

I do not regret it.

These years, these stolen moments of warmth—they will have to be enough.

They will have to fuel me for a lifetime of cold corridors and silent vigilance. When we graduate from the academy and move to the palace, this... whatever this is, will end. It must.

A Crown Prince cannot be seen to favor his bodyguard in such a way, and a Coilsong cannot afford the distraction. It will be back to protocol.

Back to bows and "Your Highness" and standing three steps behind, my eyes on the crowd, not on him.

This intimacy will become a memory. A secret I’ll carry, a pocket of warmth I can retreat into when the future grows too cold and dutiful.

The thought is a boulder on my chest, but I straighten my spine. I am a Coilsong. We are made to carry weight.

Moving quietly, I gather my discarded uniform from the floor. I dress with efficient, mechanical motions. Each button is a return to myself, a re-armoring.

I take one last look at him, sleeping peacefully, unaware of the quiet heartbreak taking place at his bedside.

Then I turn, open the door, and slip into the bright, noisy corridor of the waking academy, leaving the silence and the sigh behind.

***

Felix

I have, according to several of my more rigorous instructors, attained a "satisfactory level of princely composure." The words were delivered with grudging respect. The result is a newfound luxury: free time.

I owe it to Edith. When we are together—which is often,our time is not solely for leisure.

She drills me. On history, on law, on the subtle, unspoken languages of the court: a tilt of the head, a measured pause, the exact pressure of a handshake.

It was bothersome at first, a constant critique when all I wanted was her company. But I can see the results now. I no longer need to frantically think about etiquette, to calculate every gesture.

I simply... am.

My posture is regal without strain. My gaze is steady without effort. The right words come without searching.

She has been drilling it into my bones: You are not playing a prince. You are the prince. And somewhere along the way, between her sharp corrections and prouder smiles, the lesson took root. I have become royalty in every sense of the word.

The realization is sometimes still a quiet shock. I genuinely can’t believe I was once a Longear. That timid boy, dreaming of a simple life with Poppy... it feels like a story about someone else, an eternity ago. A faded, humble portrait from a forgotten room.

But times have changed. That is not me anymore. That version of Felix is gone. As Edith wisely says, it is time to fully discard that skin.It no longer fits the man—the king—I am becoming.

I walk through the main hallway of the academy, my steps measured and sure. And I notice it,the change. Students, predators and prey alike, subtly make way.

Their eyes drop as I pass, avoiding direct contact. Conversations hush slightly, then resume in lower tones after I’ve gone by.

It’s an action I’ve only ever seen reserved for the headmaster and feared professors.

A slow, deep sense of satisfaction settles within me. It’s not the boisterous pride of my early days here, when I craved attention. This is colder, heavier. It is the acknowledgment of a natural fact. The sun does not ask for the clouds to part; they simply do.

I am no longer just a student. I am the heir. And the academy, this microcosm of my future kingdom, is finally beginning to see me as such.

My spine is a little straighter, my shoulders a fraction broader under the weight of the realization. And with that clarity comes another, colder one.

With Lady Snowfrost... I never would have become this version of myself.

The thought is not angry, nor even regretful. It is a simple, clinical assessment.She would have been a statue of a queen beside me,flawless, cold, and picture perfect.

I understand not, why I was so attached to her.Perhaps it was because Snowfrosts have produced Queens for generations; being with her felt like stepping into a pre-approved portrait.

Perhaps it was just her beauty—that razor-sharp, glacial beauty that speaks of untouchable purity and power. It was a crown I could admire on a pillow, not one I had to learn to bear.

Edith gave me no pillow. She placed the crown, cold and heavy, directly onto my brow and told me to strengthen my neck. She saw the rabbit-not-rabbit, lion-not-lion mess I was and did not console it. She dissected it. She forged the fragments into something harder.

Edith is making me a king to be.