(Elara's POV)
When Haru arrived in Vesperia, he brought a flower from the Kingdom of Sinaloan, saying the Datu himself had allowed it to be gifted. The petals were pale violet, almost silver at the edges, delicate in a way that made it look unreal beneath the afternoon sun. "It blooms only twice a year," Haru told me with a smile as he handed it over. "I thought you would appreciate something rare." Rare. I didn't miss the implication.
Later, we sat in the courtyard pavilion, tea resting between us as the warm, familiar breeze moved through the space. With Haru, conversation had always been easy. He laughed freely. He didn't calculate every word. He didn't treat silence like something that needed to be controlled. It was comfortable. Too comfortable.
We spoke first of trade routes, of the Datu in Sinaloan, of small political absurdities that made us both laugh, and then, somehow, the conversation shifted.
We spoke of Eri.
Haru leaned back slightly, watching the steam rise from his cup. "My cousin has always been… complicated."
I tilted my head. "Complicated?"
He hesitated, just long enough to make the word feel deliberate. "Some might say wicked."
I nearly choked, the tea catching in my throat as I coughed, embarrassed by my own reaction. "Wicked?" I repeated, the word feeling excessive—wrong.
Haru noticed immediately and gave a faint smile. "Perhaps that sounds dramatic."
I placed my cup down carefully. "She doesn't seem wicked."
The moment I said it, warmth rose faintly to my face.
Why did I defend her?
Haru's expression shifted—amused, curious. "Oh?"
"She's cold," I admitted. "But that's different."
He studied me for a moment longer than necessary. "Do you really want to know?"
My curiosity flared immediately. "Yes."
He grew quieter then. "When I was ten," he began, "and Eri was five, I had a cat. It followed me everywhere." His voice softened slightly. "It became sick. It struggled to breathe. I ran to find a physician."
His fingers tightened faintly around his cup.
"When I returned, it was dead."
My chest tightened at the quiet weight of it.
"And Eri?" I asked, my voice softer now.
He did not look away.
"She was standing beside it," he said. "There was a stone in her hand."
The image formed too clearly in my mind—a small girl, a dying animal, a stone.
I swallowed. "What did she say?"
Haru's voice lowered, as though the memory itself demanded it.
"I asked her what she had done," he said, pausing just long enough for something to settle between us. "She was crying."
That caught me off guard.
"She said… I saw it suffering. I didn't want it to hurt anymore."
Silence settled between us—not empty, but heavy.
I didn't feel horror.
Only something deeper.
She was five.
What kind of child thinks like that?
What kind of child decides that mercy means ending something?
Haru exhaled slowly. "I hated her for it."
He didn't sound angry.
He sounded wounded.
"She took that choice from me."
I stared at the flower resting on the table, its pale petals unmoving in the still air, and wondered—if she had watched the animal suffer, if she had truly believed she was helping, was that wicked… or something colder? Something far more dangerous?
Haru rose from his seat suddenly, the movement breaking the stillness, and I looked up just as he stepped closer—closer than before—before lowering himself to his knees in front of me.
My breath caught.
"Elara."
His voice was gentle. Sincere.
"Don't marry her."
My pulse quickened. "Haru—"
"Refuse the Blood Oath," he continued softly. "Choose your freedom."
I stood quickly, unsettled by the closeness, by the weight of what he was asking. "You're asking me to reject an alliance between kingdoms."
"I'm asking you to protect yourself."
His eyes held mine steadily.
"She will always choose power first."
The words hit harder than I expected, because they weren't entirely wrong.
Eri did choose power.
She chose law.
She chose stability.
She had looked at me in that garden without fear of losing me.
Then refuse.
She hadn't begged. Hadn't flinched. She had simply laid out the cost.
Haru's voice softened. "You deserve someone who chooses you first."
My chest tightened as he stood slowly, no longer kneeling but still close, his presence pressing in a different way now.
"I've cared about you since we were fourteen," he admitted quietly. "You never tried to control me. You never treated me like a future king. You're strong."
Compliments.
Carefully placed.
I felt it now—not force, not pressure, but direction.
He was guiding me.
And the realization settled uncomfortably in my chest.
Is this concern… or persuasion?
I stepped back slightly.
"Do you think she's incapable of love?" I asked.
Haru hesitated—just enough for it to matter. "I think she doesn't understand it the way we do."
That unsettled me more than the story about the cat.
Because my mind had already returned to the forest—to the bandits, to the way Eri had stepped in front of me without hesitation, the way she had pulled me into hiding.
At any moment, she could have killed me.
Instead—
she saved me.
And when she placed that ring in my hand, her fingers had not trembled.
They had been steady.
Certain.
Not possessive.
Certain.
That night, she had come to my chamber to speak of the terms—composed, controlled—but there had been a faint shadow beneath her eyes.
She hadn't slept much.
I had noticed.
And she had noticed that I noticed.
Haru's story painted her as ruthless.
But my memories refused to match it.
A child who ended suffering.
A queen who offered partnership instead of chains.
A woman who never begged.
What are you, Eri?
Wicked—
or simply willing to do what others won't?
Haru reached for my hand gently. I didn't pull away, but I didn't lean in either.
"Choose yourself," he said quietly.
I met his gaze, and for the first time since he arrived, something felt clear—not certainty, not yet, but clarity.
If I refused the Blood Oath, it would not be because I feared Eri.
It would be because I chose something else.
And I was no longer sure that something else was freedom.
Because the more I learned about her, the more I wanted to understand her.
And that curiosity felt far more dangerous than any story about a stone.