Elric slipped through the door, she bolted after him, ignoring the voice in her head screaming stop.
"No more games, Elric!" she shouted, her slippers hitting the marble with sharp, angry taps.
He was fast — his royal stride already putting distance between them as he moved through the torch-lit corridor, his back stiff with tension.
But she was faster.
Fueled by rage. By confusion. By everything she deserved to know.
"I need answers, damn it!"
He didn't stop.
"Why are you running from me now?" she demanded, chasing him into the western wing, the halls growing darker, quieter. "What are you hiding from me?"
Still nothing.
"I saw that beast," she yelled, her voice echoing off the cold stone walls. "I watched it save me, and carry me back to you like it knew who I belonged to. What was it? Who was it?!"
He finally turned at the end of the corridor, his silhouette sharp in the dim torchlight.
She stopped a few feet away, chest heaving.
"You keep saying I'm in danger. That I don't belong here. That you're protecting me," she spat. "But how am I supposed to trust anything when you can't even look me in the eye and tell me the truth?"
His jaw clenched, but he remained silent.
Elira's voice cracked now, softer, but burning with pain. "I need to know who you are. What you are. Whether you're good… or bad. What my role in all of this actually is. And why—why out of everyone—did that beast bring me back to you?"
Silence stretched.
Then her voice rose again, trembling with raw emotion.
"If you really want to marry me, if you really expect me to live here in this world with you, then you owe me this! I deserve to know the truth!"
He turned away for a beat, running a hand through his hair, tense as coiled wire.
"Elira…"
Her name fell from his lips like a sigh — worn, pained.
"I never wanted to drag you into this."
She blinked. "Then why did you?"
He finally looked at her — not as a prince, but as a man.
Because his voice was no longer cold.
It was cracked.
"Because I didn't know what you were… until you saw me."
A beat passed.
"What does that mean?" she whispered.
His throat moved, as if swallowing something heavy.
"You weren't supposed to see the beast," he said.
Elira's eyes widened. "You know it."
"I am it."
Everything stopped.
Even the torches flickered, like the castle itself had paused to hear those words.
Elira stared at him, frozen.
And suddenly…
Everything made sense.