Darkness clung to Sophia, heavy and suffocating.
It pressed against her chest, squeezed at her lungs, and refused to let her sink into peace. Then came the sounds that were sharp, overlapping, endless. They were not muffled like dreams, nor clear like reality, but something in between, echoing directly inside her skull.
At first, she thought the palace had been overrun by a throng, their voices spilling one over another in a chaotic din.
"What if she never wakes?"
"The poor fragile thing, collapsing so easily…"
"If she dies so soon, the wing will fall into scandal…"
The tones were familiar, her handmaidens. Their words brimming with worry, fear, even thinly veiled mockery.
Sophia's temples throbbed. She wanted to shout at them to be silent, to grant her peace. But her lips would not part, her voice would not rise.
And then, as she strained to listen past the ringing, something unsettled her more.
Not all the voices belonged to her maids.
"If she falters again, it will reflect poorly on me…" a grumbling baritone, weary and annoyed. That must be the healer.
Then another, deeper, colder, yet layered with something she could not mistake.
"Why does this matter to me? She is nothing… a stranger bound by duty. And yet…"
Sophia's breath caught in her throat.
That voice.
Alexander.
Her pulse hammered.
Desperate to anchor herself, she forced her heavy eyelids open.
The room swam into view in soft candlelight. No one was speaking. Her maids stood stiffly in silence, their eyes darting nervously toward the bed. The healer hovered, lips pressed thin as he checked the faint glow of his diagnostic spell. And near the foot of the bed, Alexander sat in his chair, motionless, his storm-gray gaze pinned upon her.
Confusion constricted her chest. He wasn't speaking aloud, yet she could hear him...clearer than all the rest, his mind a battlefield of denial and buried concern.
His face....stoic, unreadable and did not match the turmoil of the voice she had just heard.
Was she losing her senses?
Realization struck like lightning.
These were not words spoken aloud. These were thoughts. Their thoughts.
I can hear them… all of them.
Her stomach twisted. This was no ordinary weakness of the body. This was something else, an awakening, a privilege, a curse, perhaps both.
Sophia shifted slightly, her breath shallow. Alexander's eyes narrowed, the barest flicker of relief crossing his face before the mask returned. Yet in her head, his voice still whispered, strained with conflict.
She stirs… thank the gods. No—no, foolish. Why should I care? She is not—
Sophia clenched the sheets beneath her fingers, willing herself to remain composed, though her heart raced wildly.
The healer cleared his throat, stepping back. "Your Highness, she is stable now. Likely an episode of strain and exhaustion. With rest, she will recover fully."
Alexander's face betrayed nothing, though his voice cut like steel. "See that she does."
The healer bowed, muttering under his breath...words Sophia heard both aloud and unspoken:
How can I concentrate with him glaring holes through me…
The corner of her mouth twitched despite herself.
Slowly, she turned her head toward Alexander. "Your Highness…" Her voice was hoarse but steady. "Might I beg for a private audience?"
His brows lifted, faint surprise flickering in his eyes. Then, without hesitation, he raised his hand.
"Leave us."
The command was low but firm. Servants scurried, the healer bowed and retreated, and soon the chamber was empty save for the two of them. The door closed with a final, echoing thud.
Sophia lay against the pillows, her dark hair spilling across the sheets, her heart thundering.
Alexander's gaze never wavered. His face was a mask of stoic calm, but within, she could hear it, feel it that the storm raged.
She frightens me with her silence. Yet when her eyes open, I feel…
Sophia swallowed. For a heartbeat, she considered speaking of what she had heard. But the thought twisted like a blade in her gut. No...she could not. Not yet.
Instead, she said softly, "Forgive me for troubling you, Your Highness."
Alexander's lips pressed into a thin line. His chair creaked slightly as he shifted forward, the steel of his frame catching the candlelight. His words were even, controlled. "You collapsed without warning. That is trouble enough."
But in his thoughts, she heard the truth, raw and unguarded.
She frightened me. I thought..... No, I cannot admit that. She must never know.
Sophia's lashes fluttered, and she forced herself to look away. The intimacy of hearing what he dared not speak aloud left her strangely vulnerable, as if she had trespassed into a sacred place uninvited.
Yet she could not unhear it.
The silence stretched, heavy and suffocating, broken only by the distant crackle of the hearth. Sophia's palms dampened against the linens. She needed to regain control of herself, to anchor her spinning thoughts.
"Your Highness," she murmured, voice wavering despite her efforts. "I assure you I am fine now. It must have been… the strain of travel."
Alexander's gaze sharpened. He studied her as though she were a puzzle with missing pieces.
"You were pale as death," he said. "That was not mere strain."
His mind's voice surged alongside: She dismisses it so easily. Does she think I am blind?
Sophia's throat tightened. She could no longer tell where her fear ended and his tension began.
"I…" She paused, swallowing hard. "I only wished to ease your concern, nothing more."
His eyes flickered at that, and the silence between them thickened once more.
Concern. She names it plainly. Perhaps she sees through me. No. Impossible. She cannot know…
Her heart skipped. She had to mask the faint tremor in her lips. If he suspected even slightly that she could hear him, her newfound ability could become her greatest peril.
"Then rest," Alexander said at last, his tone clipped, final.
She nodded faintly, but her thoughts screamed with questions, none of which she dared voice.
Why could she hear everyone? Why now? Was it tied to this body she had awoken in, or some deeper twist of fate? And most dangerously of all, what would Alexander do if he learned she could slip past his walls and hear the turmoil he guarded so fiercely?
Sophia closed her eyes briefly, feigning fatigue, though her mind whirled.
In the silence that followed, Alexander's thoughts grew louder, bleeding through the cracks of his composure.
She looks fragile still… I should remain. No. Better to leave, to distance myself. But if I leave and she falters again but I' m of no use to her as — Damn it, why do I care?
Sophia's chest ached. She had never imagined that behind his coldness lay such conflict. A man torn between duty and the inconvenient stirrings of something dangerously close to compassion.
For her.
A stranger. A bride foisted upon him.
The weight of the revelation pressed down upon her. If she could hear him, she could know him, know the truth behind the mask that made him a mystery to all. But with that knowledge came peril, for a man like Alexander would not take kindly to such intrusion.
Her breaths slowed, her body forcing her into stillness, though her thoughts refused to quiet.
At last, Alexander shifted back in his chair.
"You should sleep," he said simply. His tone was flat, but his inner voice betrayed him once more.
Rest well, Sophia. May tomorrow not break you as today nearly did.
Her heart stuttered at the gentleness buried in his unspoken words.
She forced herself to whisper, "Yes, Your Highness."
And as he wheeled himself back from her bedside, his eyes lingering just a moment too long, Sophia realized this was only the beginning.
She could hear thoughts. She could hear him.
And that knowledge would change everything.