[POV Liselotte]

The room was steeped in a dense silence when Leah entered.

It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence—the kind that prickles your skin and makes you look for an emergency exit. It was one of those heavy silences that only exist when the day has been too long, when too many words have been spoken before thrones and courts, and the heart remains so full of nameless things that can’t find a physical way out. The air smelled of sandalwood and the oil from the lamps fading in the corners of the immense guest chamber.

The door closed behind her with a soft, almost imperceptible click.

The dim light of the fireplace cast slow, whimsical shadows across the wall tapestries, and for a few eternal seconds, neither of us dared to break the stillness. Leah remained standing by the threshold, her silhouette cut against the dark wood, as if unsure whether to approach or whether my personal space had become forbidden territory after King William’s proposal. I stayed seated on the edge of the bed, my hands resting stiffly on my knees, feeling the weight of the decision before me press against my chest like a slab of marble.

“You’re overthinking it, Lotte,” she finally said. Her voice was a murmur, but in that room it sounded like a thunderclap.

I lifted my gaze to her. Her blue eyes glimmered with the reflection of the dying embers. “I always do. It’s my defense mechanism, I guess.”

Leah sketched a minimal smile, heavy with a fatigue we shared, and took a few steps closer, moving with that natural elegance even an adventurer’s rags had never managed to hide. “May I sit next to you?”

“Of course. It’s not like this place is really mine.”

She sat on the mattress, leaving a prudent distance between us—a respectful pocket of air I appreciated. For a long moment, the only sounds were the erratic crackle of the fire and the whistle of the winter wind battering the castle’s reinforced windows.

“I knew you’d hesitate,” she began with a gentleness that disarmed me. “From the exact second my father mentioned granting you a noble rank. I saw your jaw tighten. I saw you searching for an escape route with your eyes.”

I let out a low, dry, tired laugh. “I’m not made for that, Leah. I never was. The idea of having lands to manage, nobles to smile falsely at, and protocols to follow every time I want to sneeze… it gives me chills. I feel like I’d suffocate before the first month was over.”

“I know,” she replied immediately.

I turned my head toward her, a little surprised by the certainty in her tone. “You really do?”

Leah nodded, looking ahead. “I know you, Lotte. Maybe much more than you think—or allow yourself to admit. If they’d put a crown on your head or a baroness’s sash on you, you’d have wanted to bolt out that window. Not because you’re incapable of leading—because I know you are—but because you hate with your whole soul being chained to something you didn’t choose with absolute freedom.”

My fingers clenched tightly around the fine fabric of the sheets. “A title isn’t just an honor in a place like Whirikal, Leah. It’s an elegant cage. A perpetual debt to the throne. It’s turning myself into a chess piece on a board where I don’t even know the rules.”

“Exactly,” she agreed. Leah lowered her gaze to her own hands, interlacing her fingers. “That’s why I interrupted my father. That’s why I said what I said.”

I watched her closely, analyzing every feature of her face. “About making me your guardian?”

“Yes.” She raised her head, locking her eyes directly onto mine. There was an intensity there that forced me to hold her gaze. “I didn’t do it just to stop them from giving you a title you’d hate. I did it because I want you at my side… but I want you there in your own way. Without noble labels, without lands tying you to one place. Just you.”

I felt a knot forming in my throat, a strange warmth rising in my chest. “Leah…”

“Let me finish, please,” she said calmly, though I caught a slight tremor in her voice. “If you accepted a noble rank, you’d stop being free. My father, the councilors, the other nobles… they’d all have the right to give you orders. They’d use you for their power games. They’d put you in political situations you despise, and sooner or later this place would break your spirit. And I couldn’t bear to see that.”

I slowly shook my head, staring into the embers. “It’s just that… I don’t belong here, Leah. All of this—gold, marble, intrigue—it’s foreign to me. I feel like a system error.”

“I don’t belong completely either, Lotte,” she replied with a sad smile. “I spent ten years in an iron cage and just as many being a pariah. This kingdom is my home, yes, but my reality is far from what these nobles consider normal. We’re in this together.”

We fell silent for a few seconds, processing the magnitude of what we were discussing. Then Leah continued, her voice growing firmer.

“As my personal guardian, under the law of Whirikal, you would answer only to me. Not the King, not the Commander of the Guard, not any duke could order you to do absolutely anything. You would be my shadow, my sword, and my confidant. You would have the backing of the crown without the chains of the aristocracy.”

I swallowed, feeling my pulse quicken. “And what if one day you order me to do something that goes against what I believe? What if this place changes you and you ask me to do something my morals won’t allow?”

Leah shook her head with absolute, almost violent firmness. “I won’t. Never. I give you my word, Lotte. I say this as the friend who slept on the ground beside you, not as the princess who just reclaimed her bed. I would never ask you to betray your principles. If I ever become the kind of person who gives orders like that… then I won’t deserve to have you at my side, and I’ll give you permission to leave—or to stop me—right then and there.”

Something loosened inside me. An old fear, a paranoia I’d carried since I “woke up” in this fantastic and dangerous world—the fear of losing autonomy, of becoming a piece in someone else’s plans again.

“I’ve always lived by deciding for myself,” I said quietly, almost to myself. “Since the moment I opened my eyes in this world. Since I understood that if I didn’t mark my own path, someone else would draw it for me. Accepting this… means tying myself to your destiny.”

“No,” she corrected gently. “It means choosing.”

I looked at her, searching for any trace of doubt. I found none. “Choosing you?”

She smiled, and this time the smile lit up her entire face. “Choosing us. Choosing the future we’re going to build amid these breaches and these kings.”

The fire crackled with renewed force, sending sparks into the air as if underlining her declaration.

“When I was imprisoned in that camp,” Leah continued, lowering her voice until it became an intimate whisper, “the only thing that kept me sane—the only thing that stopped me from becoming an empty shell—was thinking that one day I’d be able to decide something for myself again. That I’d be the owner of my own steps.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, as if reliving the cold of the chains. “And when you appeared, breaking that door, breaking my reality… you reminded me what freedom felt like. You gave me a reason not to give up. It wasn’t just a physical rescue, Lotte. It was a rescue of the soul.”

My chest tightened painfully. “I didn’t do anything special, Leah. I just followed my instinct.”

“You did everything,” she corrected fervently. “You treated me like a wounded person, not a political symbol. You gave me a name when the world had taken it from me. You taught me I could trust again.”

I stayed silent, feeling the accumulated exhaustion of months of battles, the weight of uncertainty, and the strange warmth of that moment. I looked at the luxurious room, then at Leah. I knew that if I accepted, my life as a wandering adventurer would end as I knew it. But I also knew that if I left, a part of me would remain forever in these halls.

“If I accept,” I finally said, my voice a little hoarse, “my life will change forever. There will be no more anonymity. No more simple guild missions.”

“Yes. It’s a one-way path.”

“There will be dangers we can’t even imagine. Ronan was right about the breaches.”

“Many. We’ll be in the eye of the storm.”

“And people I don’t even know will probably hate me—nobles who want your place or mine.”

Leah smiled with bitter irony, recalling the men her father had just ordered investigated. “Well, that’s already happening, Lotte. Half the court already looks at you like you’re a demon infiltrator.”

I let out a brief, nervous laugh. “Great. I love challenges.”

She moved a little closer, closing the physical distance between us. “But you won’t be alone, Lotte. Never again. You have Chloé, you have Claire… and you have me. Whatever happens outside these doors, in here it’s us.”

I looked at her. It was true. I had never truly felt alone since I met her, not even in moments of deepest doubt.

I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with the castle air, and felt the pressure in my chest finally ease. “All right.”

Leah blinked, as if she hadn’t fully processed the answer. “All right?”

“I accept, Leah. I’ll be your guardian. But I’m not doing it because the King offered it to me, or because it’s my duty as a citizen of Whirikal. I accept because I want to be with you. Because this is the path I choose.”

For a second, she didn’t react. She stayed still, processing my words. Then her eyes lit up in a way I will never forget; it was as if a lamp had been lit inside her soul.

“Really? You’ll stay?”

“Really,” I repeated, feeling a strange peace. “Get ready, because I’m going to be the most annoying guardian this castle has ever seen.”

Leah let out the breath she seemed to have been holding for hours and, without thinking twice, lunged forward and hugged me. It was a sincere, warm, desperate embrace, full of everything she hadn’t been able to say in the throne room. I returned the hug without hesitation, sinking my fingers into the fabric of her tunic.

“Thank you, Lotte,” she whispered against my shoulder. “I promise I won’t fail you. I promise you won’t regret choosing me.”

“You’d better not,” I replied, trying to keep my tone light despite the emotion. “Because if you turn into a spoiled, boring princess, I’ll chase you across the entire continent even if you become queen.”

She laughed, resting her forehead against my shoulder for a moment longer. “That’s reassuring. It’s exactly the kind of threat I need to hear.”

We slowly pulled apart, but stayed seated side by side, sharing the warmth of the fireplace. The night went on without us noticing the hours passing. We talked about small things, far removed from war and politics.

Leah told me fragments of her childhood she was only beginning to remember without the filter of pain—the taste of wild strawberries in the summer garden, the songs her mother used to sing to her. I told her about my own fears, about how strange it still felt to wield the power of ice, and about how Chloé always seemed to know what we were thinking before we said it.

At some point, the embers in the fireplace nearly died out, leaving the room in a soft twilight. Leah yawned, resting her head against my shoulder with complete trust.

“I’m so glad you’re here, Lotte,” she murmured, her eyes closing with sleep.

I closed my eyes too, feeling the rhythmic beat of her heart next to mine. “Me too, Leah. Me too.”

And for the first time since I woke up in this unknown world, surrounded by monsters and magic, I felt the puzzle pieces finally fall into place. It wasn’t a title, or lands, or gold that would give me peace. It was this—a place to belong by my own choice.

The doubt had vanished. Tomorrow we would face the nobles, the breaches, and any darkness that crossed our path. But tonight, we were just two friends resting before the storm.

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