(Carlos's POV)
The Grand Hall was alive with music and voices. Nobles filled the floor, their steps moving to the sound of the instruments. Laughter and conversation floated in the air, mixed with the clatter of cups and the soft rustle of gowns. Servants moved about with trays of wine, bowing low as they passed.
I stood at the center of it all with Sienna, my wife, the Empress. Her hand rested in mine as we danced. Her gown shimmered faintly, her smile graceful and calm, the kind of smile a queen must always wear. Her beauty was praised by the court, and she looked every part the empress they wanted her to be.
"Your Majesty," she whispered as we turned, "they are all watching."
"I know," I said.
My voice was steady, but my heart was not.
We moved with the music until it slowed to its end. I guided her through the last steps, and the nobles clapped politely as we bowed. I gave her my hand as we stepped aside, showing the face of a perfect emperor before his court. But inside, there was nothing perfect at all.
Hollowness filled me.
Even here, surrounded by light, music, and people who praised my name, I felt the shadow of someone else. A name I could not speak aloud, a memory I could never bury.
Aeris.
She haunted me in silence. Her eyes, violet and bright, followed me even now. Her voice echoed, sharp and unyielding. She was supposed to be gone, but in truth, she had never left me. She lived in the spaces between my breaths, in the places no one could see.
A servant stepped forward with a tray of wine, but another man rushed past him, bowing low. His face was pale, his hands unsteady as he held out a sealed letter.
"Your Majesty," he said, his voice strained. "A message from the guards. Urgent."
I frowned, broke the seal, and read.
Lady Vieller has escaped. The dungeon is breached. Witnesses claim she was aided by a woman… a woman who looks like Princess Aeris.
The letter slipped from my hand.
For a moment, I could not breathe. The hall blurred around me, sound and color twisting together.
Aeris.
No. It could not be. She was dead. I had ended her life with my own hand. I had seen her fall, had watched the blood. There had been no mistake. I had killed her.
And yet… the words on the page said otherwise.
The clapping, the voices, the laughter, they faded, replaced by the pounding of my heart. Memories struck me without mercy. Her face, her anger, her voice.
"You will regret this."
I had laughed at those words once. Now they crushed me.
"She cannot be here," I muttered under my breath, though no one had accused me. "She cannot be alive."
But what if she was?
What if she had returned, not as a ghost of my mind, but in truth? If Aeris lived, then everything I had built rested on sand. My empire, my throne, my crown all of it had been born from her death. If she lived, then so did my sin.
I pressed a hand to my forehead, my vision blurring. Around me, whispers stirred. Nobles exchanged uneasy looks. Their emperor was faltering, and they did not understand why.
Sienna's hand touched my arm. Her voice was low, worried. "Carlos, what is it? What has shaken you so?"
I looked at her, but she seemed far away, like a figure at the edge of a dream. She could never understand. None of them could.
This was not the fear of rebellion or betrayal. This was not a threat to the throne. This was Aeris, the woman I had killed, the woman who had once been mine.
I had told myself I killed her for the empire. That her death was necessary, that I had no choice. But deep inside, I knew the truth. I had loved her. Even as I took her life, I had loved her. And now, if she lived, then what had I done?
The weight of it broke me.
My chest tightened, my breath shallow. The hall swayed. I staggered, gripping a table to steady myself, spilling wine across the cloth. Gasps rose around me.
"Is he ill?"
"What is happening?"
The whispers of the nobles cut through the silence like knives.
Sienna's voice grew sharp. "Carlos!" She tried to hold me up, but her strength was nothing against the heaviness inside me.
I saw Aeris in the corner of the hall, her figure faint but clear. She looked at me with knowing eyes, with judgment I could not escape. Her lips moved, though no sound came.
The world turned black at the edges. My knees gave way.
I collapsed.
The sound of shocked voices and Sienna's desperate cry filled the hall. But even as darkness swallowed me, I did not think of her. I did not think of my crown, my court, or my empire.
I thought only of Aeris.
Always Aeris.