"Follow her," Richard said again, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
The most necessary. The most dangerous.
"Follow her?" Elias repeated, almost laughing.
"Into what? Into dying?"
The bitterness in his voice cracked open something darker beneath it.
Fear. Real fear.
Richard didn't blink. Didn't flinch.
"You think you're alive because your heart still beats?" he asked, stepping closer.
His voice dropped to a whisper sharp enough to slice skin.
"You think you're living because you have money, and time, and choices?"
He took another step.
Elias instinctively stepped back — just once — like a man retreating from a blow he couldn't see coming.
"You're not living, Elias," Richard said.
His voice like the creak of a door opening into a room full of ghosts.
"You're surviving. You're enduring. You're waiting to die quietly enough that no one bothers to grieve."
The words landed harder than any blow.
"You chase victories you don't even want," Richard said.
"You busy yourself with distractions. You mistake noise for meaning. And all the while," — his voice softened dangerously — "you rot behind your perfect smile."
The whiskey glass clinked sharply against the marble as Richard set it down.
The finality of it cracked through the heavy air between them.
"I spent my life building something for you," Richard said.
An empire. A future. A crown that Elias had never asked for.
"But I never taught you how to live inside it."
The admission tore free from Richard like a wound finally breaking open.
He wasn't powerful in that moment. He wasn't untouchable. He was tired.
Human. Fragile.
The noise of the gala blurred into meaningless static around them. Only the weight of this moment mattered. The undeniable gravity of it.
"Follow her," Richard said again, softer now.
"But not for me."
He met Elias's gaze fully, raw and unshielded.
"For yourself."
"And if you come back," he said, gesturing faintly toward the chandeliers, the suits, the thrones built from bones and blood, "if you still want this life—"
His hand dropped.
Heavy. Hopeless.
"Then it's yours," Richard finished.
Freely. Willingly. A gift. A curse.
A long silence stretched between them.
The kind that feels like standing on the edge of a cliff, toes curling over the abyss.
"But if you don't—" Richard said, his voice barely a whisper, "then maybe you'll finally find something worth living for."
Elias swallowed hard.
The air burned in his lungs. The fracture line inside him split wider.
Painful. Liberating.
"Why her?" he asked finally, his voice breaking around the edges.
Richard smiled then — a small, broken thing.
Not victory. Not defeat.
Something messier. Something real.
"Because she's already learned," he said softly, "how to live without guarantees."
For a moment, neither of them moved.
The world tilted. The door opened.
And Elias realized.
He had already crossed the threshold.
The moment he had looked into Mira's eyes and seen the sky without walls. The moment he had dared to want something more.
Something real. Something alive.
He didn't need permission anymore. He didn't need a crown.
He needed a life.
"Okay," Elias said.
The word left his mouth in a raw exhale.
A beginning. A promise. A rebellion.
Richard nodded once.
Sharp. Final. A silent benediction.
"Then go," he said.
"Before you remember how to be afraid."
This time, Elias didn't hesitate.
He turned. And he walked.
Away from the chandeliers. Away from the kingdom built for him. Away from the hollow applause and the brittle masks.
Toward the unknown. Toward the messy, brutal, beautiful, terrifying thing called life. Toward her.
He didn't look back.
Not this time. Not anymore.
****
He cut through the crowd, ignoring the bright laughter, the clinking glasses, the soft, perfumed conversations that clung to the edges of the room like cobwebs.
The music swelled again, drowning out anything real.
He barely noticed. He was moving on instinct now.
Following something invisible but undeniable.
Outside the ballroom, near the entrance to the side gardens, he saw her.
Mira.
She leaned casually against a stone wall, one foot propped back against it, half-turned away from the chaos behind her. The green dress she wore caught the low light, the fabric rippling gently in the cool night breeze, whispering against her legs. She was staring down at her phone, thumbs moving slowly, her expression focused and strangely peaceful — utterly unbothered by the storm of artifice behind her.
Unhurried. Unimpressed.
Unafraid to be still in a world obsessed with noise.
Elias hesitated a few steps away.
For a long moment, he just watched her. Watched the way she existed without apology or artifice.
No posing. No performance.
Just... being.
It hit him then, unexpected and sharp.
How rare that was. How starved he had been for something — for someone — real.
And yet, as he stood there, uncertainty gnawed at him.
What if he approached her wrong?
What if, by stepping forward, he broke whatever fragile, impossible thing was beginning to bloom between them?
He wasn't good at real. He wasn't good at alive.
He was only good at pretending.
Before he could figure out how to move, she moved first.
She didn't look up. She didn't have to.
Her voice, light and teasing, cut through the night air with disarming ease.
"Finally," she said, her mouth curving into a slow, mischievous smile.
"You came."
He blinked, startled.
It felt stupid, but part of him — the raw, aching part he kept buried — had needed that.
Needed to be seen. Needed to be expected.
"You knew I would?" he asked, voice lower than he meant it to be.
She shrugged one shoulder, slipping her phone into a small, worn purse slung casually across her body.
"Well," she said, her tone dancing between playful and something softer, "your father asked me a favor. One last favor he thought maybe I could grant in this life."
Elias frowned, stepping closer without even realizing it, his hands sliding deep into the pockets of his tailored jacket.
A defense he didn't remember choosing.
"What favor?" he asked.
The night air smelled faintly of cut grass and something older — rain maybe, or something waiting to fall.
Mira glanced up at him through her lashes.
Her eyes — luminous in the low light — glinted with a spark that was playful on the surface, but fierce underneath.
"What else?" she said, a small laugh threading through the words.
"Teach his son how to actually live."
She said it so easily.
Like it wasn't an impossible task. Like she wasn't carrying the weight of two lives instead of one.
Like maybe — just maybe — she believed it was possible.
Elias opened his mouth — to argue, to deflect, and to hide— but she cut him off with a gentle tap to her temple.
"You've got that look," she said, grinning sideways.
"The one people get when they realize they've been starving without even knowing it."
He scowled instinctively, old reflexes firing.
Armor rising.
But it crumbled just as quickly. Because there was no malice in her voice. Only mischief. Only truth.
He shifted, awkward for the first time in a long time. Vulnerable in a way that felt dangerous.
And necessary.
"You spoke well," he said instead, the words gruff and awkward.
But real. The most real thing he had said all night.
Maybe in years.
Mira tilted her head, studying him as if he were a strange and slightly amusing puzzle. Her smile softened, losing its sharpness. Becoming something gentler. Something almost tender.
"You mean," she said, teasing but not mocking, "I ruined your evening."
He almost smiled.
Almost.
The muscles of his face twitched, unpracticed and stiff.
A real smile.
A rare thing. A precious thing.
"Maybe," he admitted, his voice roughened by something he couldn't name.
Mira's eyes lit up, like she had just won a bet she hadn't even needed to place.
"Good," she said, stepping a little closer.
Close enough that he could see the faint freckles dusted across the bridge of her nose.
Close enough to feel the warmth of her against the chill night air.
"It was probably a fake evening anyway," she added.
Matter-of-fact.
Kind.
The noise of the ballroom thudded faintly through the stone walls behind them.
Safe. Predictable. Deadening.
But here, under the cold breath of the night sky, it felt different.
Cleaner. Sharper. Alive.
He watched as she wrapped her arms loosely around herself, the fabric of her dress shifting like a second skin.
It wasn't a calculated move. It wasn't meant to seduce or impress.
It was simply... human.
Soft and real in a way that made something ache deep inside him.
"You're interesting," Mira said suddenly, her voice lighter again.
Studying him with a tilted head and a sly half-smile.
"Not special," she added, grin widening into something irreverent and bright.
"But interesting."
Elias huffed out a quiet laugh, surprising himself.
The sound cracked something open inside his chest — a thin fissure letting in cold air and the faint, terrifying scent of hope.
"Thanks," he said dryly.
"You're welcome," she replied easily, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
A beat passed. A heartbeat stretched thin and trembling between them. The kind of pause that didn't demand to be filled. The kind of silence that felt alive.
"He said you could show me what life is," Elias said finally, voice quieter now.
Stripped of defense.
"Maybe," Mira said, her smile fading into something deeper.
Sadder. Stronger.
"Maybe I can."
"And how's that supposed to work?" he asked.
Not mocking.
Genuine.
Almost... pleading.
She glanced back toward the glittering ballroom, her mouth twisting wryly.
"By showing you everywhere they tell you not to look," she said.
"Behind the headlines. Beneath the penthouses. Inside the places that don't photograph well."
She turned back to him then.
And for a moment, something unspoken passed between them.
Something fragile. Something fierce.
"You want to see it?" she asked softly.
"Really see it?"
He hesitated. Not because he didn't want to. But because he finally understood what it would cost. Everything he had built. Everything he had pretended to be.
He exhaled slowly, the mist of it catching in the cold air between them.
A visible tether. A visible choice.
"I don't have a choice, do I?" he muttered.
Half a challenge. Half a surrender.
Mira's face softened again, her eyes gleaming.
A warmth that had nothing to do with temperature. A promise he didn't understand yet — but wanted to.
"No," she said simply.
"You don't."
She dug into her small purse, pulling out a torn scrap of paper.
The edges frayed. The handwriting messy and hurried.
Real. Alive.
She pressed it into his hand. Her fingers brushed his.
Warm. Steady. Real.
The contact sent a jolt up his spine — small but undeniable.
"Meet me here tomorrow morning," she said, her voice lighter again.
The glimmer of mischief returning.
"Wear sneakers."
She winked — playful, reckless, and fearless.
"Your fancy shoes won't survive where we're going."
Before he could speak, before he could stop her, she turned.
Melted into the crowd. Gone like a star slipping behind a cloud.
Elias stood there long after she disappeared.
The night air bit into his skin, sharp and sobering.
He stared down at the scrap of paper in his hand. At the address scrawled across it like a secret.
A dare.
A map to a different life.
Tomorrow.
He would leave behind the world he knew. He would step off the stage he had been trapped on for so long. He would follow a girl who was already halfway to the horizon.
A girl who was dying.
But more alive than anyone he had ever met.
Maybe he would lose himself. Maybe he would find something better. Maybe, for the first time in his life, he would learn how to be alive before it was too late.
Elias closed his hand around the paper.
Tight.
Like an oath.
And for the first time in as long as he could remember, he felt like he had a purpose.