As soon as their dance ended, Ariel was swept away, first by her father, then by a small crowd of suitors eager to claim her time. It was only natural. She was the princess of Solvara, and in this hall, she was more than a daughter or dancer; she was a bridge between two kingdoms.

  Ryn stepped back without hesitation. This was her role, not his, and he had no place interfering. Yet it seemed the attention had not been reserved for her alone.

  One after another, nobles began to approach him. Young nobles, some Solvaran, some bearing Varghelm’s colors, drifted toward him, hesitating at first; their eyes lingered on him too long, cheeks touched faintly red. One after another, they asked, soft-voiced but insistent, if he might grant them a dance.

  Ryn hesitated at first. He’d only wanted to step aside. Protect the princess from a distance.

  But now there was a line of expectant faces waiting for him, each one flushed and hopeful. If he rejected them outright, it would only raise questions, questions that could hinder the very effort Ariel and the rest of Solvara was putting into these relations.

  So, he bowed to the nearest noble.

  “Of course,” he said, his tone the usual calm.

  Her eyes lit up. Ryn led her to the floor. His movements were sharp and precise.

  The lady looked up at him, nearly melting under his steady grip. “You’re… incredible,” she said.

  Ryn glanced at her, then back at the pattern of the floor. “…I practiced,” he replied simply.

  To him, it was a fact. To her, it was poetry. She blushed so hard she nearly lost the step, and Ryn had to guide her back on beat with a small shift of his hand.

  When the song ended, he released her quickly, only to turn and find another noble waiting. Then another. Then another.

  By the third dance, Ryn’s face hadn’t changed once. He moved with the same quiet discipline, silent, unreadable. Inside, however, he was muttering to himself, convinced this was some punishment from the gods.

  Onlookers, of course, saw none of that. To them, he looked impossibly composed, almost regal. Each noble who danced with him left convinced they had glimpsed at something rare.

  He just wanted to sit down.

  After what felt like centuries, Ryn was finally able to slip away. He lingered at the edge of the hall, watching the noble girls still scanning the crowd for him. He sighed inwardly, shoulders loosening for the first time all night. At last, a moment of quiet.

  Then;

  “Hello there. What's your name?”

  The voice was soft. Too soft. It slid across his skin in a way that made his instincts tighten.

  Ryn turned.

  The eldest son of Varghelm stood there, pale gray eyes steady on him.

  Ryn bowed forward almost immediately, posture sharp from habit. He hadn’t been expecting to meet one of Varghelm’s royal family so directly.

  “Sir Ryn of the Golden Hawks, Your Highness,” he said, his voice as flat and steady as he could manage.

  The eldest son was still watching him, expression unreadable, eyes gray and unblinking.

  “Golden Hawks…” he repeated, the words slow, tasting them.

  Then came a laugh, unnatural, one that did not fit the words Ryn said.

  “How amusing. Golden Hawks…”

  “Solvara still grieves their queen, it seems.” His smile didn’t touch his eyes. “Still, for him to conjure a whole house for you… You must be of some importance.”

  Ryn’s eyes narrowed. His heart thundered.

  He hadn’t expected the truth to be grasped so quickly.

  What now?

  “Not that it matters,” the prince murmured, his gaze narrowing further, as if peeling back Ryn’s skin in search of something buried deeper.

  “A mundane human…” His lips curved, though there was no warmth in them. “How odd.”

  There was a pause before he continued;

  “You may rise.”

  Ryn straightened, his posture controlled, eyes steady as they met the prince’s.

  A smile tugged at the Varghelm heir’s lips, not warm, but entertained.

  “So, sister wasn’t lying about your looks after all.”

  The prince had soft, almost feminine features framed by long cascades of gray hair, his eyes the same shade, flat, cold, and unblinking.

  “Your Highness… to what do I owe this pleasure?” Ryn asked, forcing his voice steady, though cold sweat traced down his spine.

  The prince tilted his head, the faintest curve at his lips. “Well done, No one would suspect you weren’t a noble.”

  “I don’t understand what you mean, Your Highness,” Ryn lied, every word iron-flat.

  A laugh slipped out, soft but wrong, grating against the air.

  Silence settled between them for a while. Until the prince spoke again

  “Would you grant me this dance, Sir Ryn?”

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  The voice came soft, every instinct told him to run.

  The eldest son of Varghelm stood there, hand extended, pale gray eyes steady on him. The ballroom’s golden light scattered off his silver hair, and yet there was nothing warm in the sight.

  The prince’s fingers didn’t waver. “It would be rude to refuse royalty, wouldn’t it?”

  He could feel gazes in the hall turn toward them. This wasn’t a request, not really.

  Ryn hesitated only a moment before he took the prince’s hand. The air around them seemed to thin as they stepped into the center of the ballroom.

  The music swelled — slow, deliberate.

  The prince’s grip was deceptively gentle, his palm cool, movements elegant and effortless. Yet each step drew Ryn tighter into the dance, closer to that calm, smiling face.

  The prince leaned in, the faint brush of his breath against Ryn’s ear. “A mundane human, you? I still can't believe it.”

  Ryn didn’t answer. His heart pounded, but his face stayed calm.

  They turned again. The ballroom seemed distant now, the music fading into a muted hum as if sound itself bent away from the prince.

  “You see my brother there?”

  “He is blind,” the prince said lightly, as though discussing the weather. “That is his vow…”

  They turned again, steps perfectly measured.

  “Yet it is also what allows him to see more than most.”

  The prince’s voice lowered.

  “He whispered to me that you seemed interesting.”

  Ryn’s spine straightened. The word sat in his chest like a hook.

  The prince’s smile curved again, elegant and cruel. “He doesn’t use words carelessly. But…” He glanced Ryn over with deliberate disinterest. “…perhaps he was mistaken.”

  They spun once more. The music softened, distant now, as if the air itself bent away from them.

  A long silence settled once more.

  “However…” the prince’s voice lowered, his words sliding sharp and precise, “I will still ask you this, Sir Ryn, if that is even your name.”

  “Tell me,” his smile still fixed, “what do you think came first, the blessings of the gods, or the domains of the soul?”

  Ryn blinked once. “Your Highness?”

  “An honest question.” The prince’s voice was almost playful now. He guided Ryn through a slow arc, their boots gliding across the marble. “Blessings, divine gifts from the gods. Domains, the inner grounds of the soul, where the blessing is held and cultivated. We humans wield both, and yet…” His eyes glinted. “Which birthed the other?”

  Ryn’s pulse quickened. He understood the prince's words.

  What unsettled him wasn’t the question itself.

  It was why the prince had chosen to ask it of him.

  Was this a riddle? Or some trap?

  He spun Ryn lightly, eyes gleaming as though he’d said something far less venomous.

  A faint note of laughter rippled from somewhere in the ballroom beyond, distant and warm.

  The prince’s voice carried on, calm but relentless:

  “We know animals lack domains. It is what sets us and Mythical creatures apart, why we are less likely to fall into aberration, why we alone wield relics, why we grow stronger rather than lose ourselves.”

  They turned.

  The prince moved with effortless precision, every step deliberate, his hand guiding Ryn’s shoulder just enough to dictate the rhythm. He paced his words, almost idly, though his gray eyes never left Ryn. His tone was thoughtful, almost gentle, but there was an undercurrent beneath it—something dry and razor-thin.

  Ryn shifted slightly. He could feel the warmth of the ballroom pressing faintly at his back, but here, near the prince, the air felt thin, chilled.

  “Why this is so, we cannot say.the prince continued, pivoting them both in a smooth half-turn. “Some claim our domains are timeless, designed to fit whatever blessings we would one day bear. But that would mean the soul knows the future already, that our paths are only a script yet to be read.”

  He shifted closer, voice lowering to a whisper.

  His lips curved faintly, but the smile was cold.

  “I dislike that idea. If everything is written, then none of us have power at all.”

  They crossed the floor in a slow arc, the music dipping lower as though bowing to the tension between them.

  “Others argue,” the prince murmured, “that domains are not the soul’s doing, but the work of the gods themselves, crafted to cradle the gifts they bestow. Humans, mere vessels of divine will.”

  A turn, sharp this time — the prince spun him halfway, catching his hand again as if to steady him. “Neater,” he said softly, “but not any less terrifying. It also doesn't explain why the unblessed sometimes touch their domains. What divine hand shapes those?”

  A pause. The music behind them softened into strings, distant, almost ghostly. The prince’s tone followed it down, quieter, musing.

  “The common belief is simpler: the gods choose only those whose domains can carry their blessings. Order born from selection, not fate, survival of the most compatible.”

  The final note of the violin trembled between them, almost breaking.

  His gaze sharpened, the softness gone.

  “Two of these views put the soul first, one puts the gods.”

  He turned Ryn once more, a smooth pull, their boots whispering against the marble, and when they faced each other again, the prince’s expression had changed.

  “Tell me, Sir Ryn.” His words were silk wrapped around steel. “What do you believe?”

  He tilted his head, a faint edge of mockery now.

  “Or perhaps I am only spouting nonsense. Something a boy from a closed-off Solvara could not possibly—”

  “Why can’t it be both?”

  The words left Ryn before he could stop them.

  For a heartbeat, the prince froze mid-step, their clasped hands suspended between them.

  Then, laughter.This one was different, louder, longer, spilling over until he had to wipe the tears gathering at the corners of his gray eyes.Heads turned. He didn’t care.

  “How curious,” he echoed, spinning Ryn one last time, the hem of his cloak flaring like smoke. “Both, you say?” His smile curved sharper. “Why not both?”

  He stopped the dance with a single step back, their hands still joined.“I like that. A dialogue, not a script. Our souls and our gifts interacting, neither supreme, neither absolute. The gods do not simply carve us into shape, nor are we entirely the architects of ourselves. We are… drawn out. Molded. Smothered. Changed with time”

  His lips curled faintly, though his gaze was cold as ever.

  “Just like all things are.”

  Then he released Ryn’s hand.

  “How nice.”

  Ryn merely stood, his heart thudding against his ribs under the prince’s gaze.

  “Alright then, Sir Ryn. It was a delight talking with you.”

  “It’s a shame,” he murmured, voice soft again, too soft. “We may never speak again. Do me a favor and try to survive, won’t you? I’d hate for this to be our last dance.”

  He tilted his head, almost playfully, then turned.

  The crowd seemed to part on its own as he moved, not out of respect, but out of instinct. No one wanted to brush too close to him. The faint scent of iron and something colder trailed in his wake, sharp as frost after rain. Even the air felt thinner once he passed, as though he’d taken something from it.

  Ryn watched the prince’s pale figure dissolve into the golden light of the hall, swallowed by laughter and silk. Only when that silvery hair vanished from sight did he finally let out a slow, unsteady breath. His hands were trembling before he even realized it.

  How terrifying.

  And then, almost angrily, he thought: And what the hell was that teacher talking about? A prince, an actual member of royalty, just casually chatting about gods and domains like it was dinner conversation. Yet it's apparently repulsive…