"You've been avoiding me," she said quietly.
He had not turned when she entered.
"I'm busy."
The estate did not change when people did. The perceptions and intentions of one another.
He was standing by a window, jacket on, sleeves unrolled, posture immaculate as ever. The city reflected faintly in the glass behind him, turning him into something double-edged, man and shadow.
Akhile had searched and found Nathaniel in the west wing office just after sunset.
The corridors remained polished, and the maroon sky stretched flawlessly above the steel towers, indifferent to human structure. The evening was timid.
His tone was shallow and superficial.
The silence was worse.
She closed the door behind her. The seal sounded louder than it should have.
"I didn't come to argue with you."
"That would be something new," he replied.
Akhile inhaled slowly, her eyes glistening in the night light.
"That morning," she began, "I reacted poorly."
Nathaniel turned then, finally facing her. He was caught off guard by her beauty, having expected to be composed. She was wearing a dress made from Meadowlands silk, flowing wistfully to the floor, the material hugging at her hips, something which had always suited her.
"You do not need to-," he cleared his throat, distracted by his odd attraction to her. "There's no difference."
Her throat tightened. "I didn't mean it like that."
"Like what, Princess Cora?"
Hearing the formality in her name, she turned her gaze away from him, only to get what was on her mind out, once and for all. "Like it was nothing, like it didn't mean anything."
Silence stretched between them, thinly and with some obscurity.
Nathaniel walked across the room, past her, towards his desk, disrupting the air between them and redirecting it in the opposite direction. It was a performance of detachment. She could see the tension in the way his jaw fastened in place.
"It doesn't matter how you meant it," he said.
Akhile stepped closer, ignoring the procured distance between them.
"I don't regret it." She continued, twiddling her fingers together, from her nerves,
That made him still. Not visibly. Not dramatically. But still nonetheless.
His gaze hardened, "Regret isn't the issue, my dear," he said. "Uncertainty is."
She flinched at the word. "I'm not uncertain!" she exclaimed, perplexed that he could still read her.
"You don't remember where you are half the time," he replied evenly. "You wake up in places you didn't walk to. You look at me like you know me. And then like you don't."
The accuracy made her chest burn. Nathaniel held her gaze.
Akhile's heart raced. She wasn't expecting him to have noticed her recent encounters with the real Princess Cora. "H-how did you know that?"
He sneered at her and started punching some numbers on a hologram of a document.
The surveillance of her every move had never stopped.
"This marriage is not meant to be a romance novel," he continued. "It is more of a contract. It protects the Meadowlands. It protects the Sharman inheritance. It stabilises what my father built and what your elders are too afraid to tell you."
"I know that," she whispered.
"Do you?"
His voice remained low and controlled. "If you lose focus, if both of us lose focus," he said, "it will jeopardise everything."
Akhile stared at him, something cold settling in her stomach. She wanted to sit, but he hadn't offered. She was not welcome here.
"I- I didn't mean to make you…like this."
Akhile walked over to the desk, towards where he was seated. She had hoped that if he saw that she was genuine towards him, he would allow himself to be vulnerable again.
Her heart raced, his gaze locked on hers, suspicious of her approaching him.
"What do you want, Cora?" he whispered, almost swayed by the proximity to him.
"I wanted to tell you I am sorry. And…I don't want you to hate me."
Nathaniel stood from his chair, feeling the discomfort of staring up at her. Akhile's eyes had tears in them, spilling from the sides. Her hands were restless, so she clenched them at her sides.
He reached out to her face with his hand, a finger caressing one side of her cheek, wiping the tears away.
He kissed her where the tear had landed, before kissing her on the other cheek, wiping the other tear with his lips.
Time had stopped, including her breathing.
He kissed her on the lips this time. Although it felt like he was verifying something, like he was confirming her intentions.
He pulled away, leaving her yearning for more.
"Nathaniel," she said, swallowing hard.
Nathaniel's eyes darkened, but his tone remained precise.
"There's one thing I have been concealing from you," he said. "You are not obligated to marry me." He reached for a glass on the desk behind him and scoffed it down in one gulp.
The statement landed without warning. Akhile couldn't control her blinking.
"What?"
"The betrothal," he continued, pouring again from a decanter. "You are bound to a Redcliff heir," he clarified. "Not specifically to me."
The room felt smaller.
"But…that's not what you-"
"The elders have always believed that the marriage should be between us, because I am efficient in doing things."
"And you're not efficient?" she challenged.
His mouth curved faintly. "I am pragmatic."
Akhile's pulse slowed a pace.
Nathaniel handed her the letter he had received from the Meadowlands with the words:
Proceed with preparations. The cycle has resumed.
"I don't understand. Why are you showing me this?"
"The elders trust that I will make sure to get you to the altar, by all means necessary." He said, stroking her face again, making it obvious that he had been pretending to care for her.
"So...That night...it was an act?" Akhile's eyes widened.
"It was just...sex." he sipped his gin again. "You see, Princess, you do not have to worry yourself about me hating you. It meant nothing."
Akhile stumbled back into a chair. "You were manipulating me."
Nathaniel's grin grew wider, his stare empty. "I've seen you with Norman. Your cuddles on the terrace, and that you're spending so much time in his apartment. I thought I'd let my little brother have you if it means you will follow through with your end of the bargain."
There was a long pause between them. Akhile wanted to cry, but she couldn't, not for Nathaniel Redcliff. She wanted to feel relieved, but to marry any Redcliff made her dispensable, to the highest bidder.
She raised her gaze to him, her expression filled with loathing and disgust and disappointment.
"If you have been watching my every move, Nathaniel, then you may have noted that I am not myself. I haven't been the same since the blackout and the fracture in the sky." She paused, for she had to breathe in intervals. "I always find myself with Norman, but I can't explain it."
Nathaniel cringed, now on his third glass of gin. He placed it back on his desk, his gaze remaining on his drink. "You don't have to make me understand anything, for we are not a couple."
"You're giving me away?"
"I'm giving you permission. I think this is rather generous of me, don't you think?"
"That's not the same thing."
Nathaniel stepped closer now, just enough that she could feel his presence but not touch him.
"If you feel safer with Norman," he said quietly, "then choose Norman."
The words were said as if they were from a protocol for arranged marriages.
"As long as you marry a Redcliff, the barrier holds. The bloodline remains intact."
Her chest tightened.
"So that's all I am to?" she asked. "An instrument?"
His eyes flickered quite a bit, his jaw clenched.
"Perhaps."
She swallowed hard.
"And to you?"
He didn't answer immediately. That silence told her everything.
Nathaniel stepped back, creating space deliberately.
"This is bigger than us," he said. "If your uncertainty continues, it becomes a risk."
"And if I'm certain?" she demanded.
His gaze held hers.
"Then prove it."
The challenge was quiet. Dangerous.
Akhile felt anger rise first, a defence mechanism she knew well.
"You're pushing me toward him."
"I'm removing the pressure."
"No," she said, shaking her head. "You're pretending to shut me out. That was not just sex, and you know it."
That made something flare in his eyes, brief and bright, and then nothing.
"You think this is about that night?"
"I think you're hurt."
The word hovered between them.
Nathaniel's posture straightened.
"Princess Cora," he said evenly, reverting to title, "my personal feelings are irrelevant."
The formality stung more than the accusation would have.
"If you believe you would be happier with Norman," he continued, "I will not obstruct it."
"And what about you?" she asked, voice lower now.
"What about me?"
"If I chose him."
Nathaniel held her gaze for a long moment.
"Then I would ensure the succession proceeds without disruption."
Not: I would fight for you.
Not: I would object to your union.
Not: It would anger me.
He was cold as steel.
Akhile felt something inside her shatter.
"You're cruel," she said softly.
"And you're entitled to your opinion," he replied.
She searched his face for a crack. A plea. A flicker of light. There was nothing.
He had sealed himself from her.
"Is that what you want?" she asked faintly.
Nathaniel's eyes softened, just slightly, and that was worse than if they hadn't.
"What I want," he said quietly, "is for you to leave now…respectfully."
She hated him for that answer. And she hated herself for wanting him to say otherwise.
Akhile stepped back.
"If I marry Norman," she said slowly, "you'll stand beside him at the ceremony."
"Yes."
"You'll watch."
"Yes."
The steadiness of it was unbearable.
She nodded once.
"Fine."
Nathaniel inclined his head, as if they had just concluded a contract negotiation and were about to sign off in agreement.
"As long as you bind yourself to a Redcliff," he said, "my inheritance remains intact."
Not them.
The inheritance.
Akhile turned and walked toward the door. Her hand hovered at the panel.
"Just so you know," she said without turning around, "I didn't come here to choose between brothers."
Nathaniel did not respond.
She left.
When the door sealed shut, the office remained silent.
Nathaniel stood very still for several seconds.
Then his hand pressed flat against the glass window, just once, not in frustration, not in weakness, but as if anchoring himself to something solid.
Outside, the maroon sky pulsed faintly.
And somewhere in the estate, Norman was waiting for Princess Cora.