Riven turned, his eyes fixed intently on Ashtoria. Her face looked serious, calm as always, yet there was sothing different this ti. Behind the sharp glint of her gaze, he caught a faint spark of hope, so fleeting he almost doubted he had seen it.
He frowned slightly, then returned the question to her.
"Why are you asking about Queen Ashtoria Iskandrite?" he asked slowly. "Do you have so connection to her?"
Ashtoria did not answer right away. In her heart, there was a powerful urge to admit the truth—that the queen they spoke of was none other than herself. That the mad queen everyone whispered about, the one branded bloodthirsty and destructive, now stood right in front of him.
But like many secrets she had swallowed for years, this one she held back again. She chose silence for a brief mont before speaking flatly, "I am only curious. What do you think of that terrifying, dreadful queen?"
Even she did not fully understand why the question mattered so much. Perhaps because she wanted to know how Riven truly saw her. Not as Aria, not as the mysterious woman she had played these past few days, but as herself, the figure known only through whispers of fear. And for reasons she could not explain, she felt his answer would decide sothing far greater than just a passing conversation.
Riven seed to think for a long ti before exhaling softly. His shoulders lowered, as though so invisible weight pressed him down.
"I don't know," he admitted. "I have never seen her with my own eyes, only heard stories from others."
Ashtoria watched him more closely. Her face, usually as steady as carved stone, shifted slightly. A trace of unease slipped into her stern composure, as though she held her breath, waiting.
"They say she is cruel, bloodthirsty, a cold-hearted woman who kills anyone who dares oppose her," Riven continued, his voice deeper, more asured.
He paused, recalling fragnts of rumors. "So even say she made a pact with demons. That she killed her own family for the throne. And many other horrors besides."
The words hung in the air, heavy though he spoke them without accusation. Riven had no intent to wound, yet when he glanced back at her, he caught the faintest change in her expression—sharp, but beneath the sharpness lay an old wound reopened, and anger buried in silence.
He fell quiet, then spoke again in a softer tone. "But honestly, it all sounds like ghost stories stretched too far. I don't know what is real and what is not. What I do know is that people often create such tales about those who are too strong or too different, because they fear what they cannot understand."
He looked straight into her crimson eyes. "Most of them have never even t the queen. They only repeat what they've heard."
Ashtoria said nothing. Her face remained calm as carved marble, yet Riven could sense sothing shifting beneath. As though all her emotions were locked behind a wall, with only fragnts slipping through.
Deep inside, sothing stirred within her. That strange feeling she always had near this man grew stronger now, deeper, like waves slowly devouring sand along the shore. Her heart beat faster, not from fear, but from sothing harder to na.
She held Riven's gaze, waiting, almost desperate for him to continue. She wanted to hear it clearly, to know exactly how he judged her.
Riven had no intention of lying. Even with questions crowding his mind, he could not bring himself to twist the truth. Every word he spoke, spoken or not yet spoken, was raw honesty. Yet he also knew honesty could sotis cut like a dull blade, leaving wounds without intending to.
He drew a slow breath. His voice was calm, but heavy. "Still, rumors like that usually have so root in truth. Even if only a fraction of the tale is real."
The words fell like a blunt knife. Not fatal, but sharp enough to scrape a tender place.
And Ashtoria felt it. In an instant, sothing cracked within her. A fine, invisible fracture, but real.
'So that is what you think of ,' she thought coldly. The strange warmth in her chest—the quickened heartbeat, the fragile hope she could never fully understand—was drowned in a wave of coldness spreading through her veins.
Her beauty remained unshaken, but her gaze shifted. Not anger, not sorrow, but fragility masquerading as strength. She stepped forward, closing the distance, her voice trembling faintly as she asked again,
"You still haven't answered . I asked what your personal opinion is of the queen."
Riven's breath caught. Her eyes, her tone, the subtle tremor in her voice—all spoke louder than words. He had tried so hard not to assu, not to admit that the woman before him was Queen Iskandrite. But if she asked like this, if her expression carried so much weight, was that not already an unspoken confession?
How could he still pretend not to know?
The truth pressed on him with undeniable force. The woman called Aria, the one he had saved when wounded, the one who taught him to be a Lawbearer, to wield a blade, the one who had bared herself to him without hesitation, the woman who haunted his thoughts—she was none other than Queen Ashtoria Iskandrite.
The tyrant ruler of Iskandria.
A title far too heavy for soone like him to carry near.
Before he could speak, Ashtoria moved. With a mixture of anger and fragility, she seized his collar and pulled him close. The space between them vanished, their breaths mingling, their eyes locked.
"Answer ," she whispered sharply, yet beneath the sharpness was a plea.
Riven fell silent. He could sll the faint fragrance of roses drifting from her crimson hair. He could see the details of her face. The slight furrow of her brows, the tremor in her red lips, and her eyes… those crimson eyes too deep to decipher. But more than all that, he felt sothing sharper than her grip.
Need.
This woman needed his answer. Not to confirm who she was, but to know if, without crown or na, she could still be accepted.
Ti seed to stop.
The world fell silent.
Only the two of them remained, trapped in a space woven of tension, emotion, and sothing slowly growing between them.
Riven lifted his hand slowly, touching her fingers still gripping his collar. Their eyes stayed locked, words caught in their throats, silence heavy between them. A silence that felt like the beginning of sothing neither fully understood.
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