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Thorns and Crowns

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Chapter 5: Ash Beneath Silk

It began with whispers.

Meilan heard them first — hushed voices behind lattice screens, rumors passed from one servant to the next.

> “She wasn’t meant to last the winter...”

“The prince won’t protect her...”

“It was the Dowager who approved the tea that day.”

The princess said nothing. But she listened.

Carefully.

Like one who knows survival comes not from swords — but from silence.

Two days later, an invitation arrived.

A poetry reading in the Pavilion of Immortal Pines — hosted by the Dowager Empress herself.

Meilan paled.

> “You must not go,” she urged. “It’s too soon after the last warning—”

“I cannot refuse,” the princess said softly. “To decline would be seen as disrespect. And to disrespect her…”

She didn’t finish the sentence.

She didn’t need to.

The pavilion was high in the western gardens — open to the wind, with carved wooden beams and paper lanterns that fluttered like trapped butterflies. Scholars and noblewomen lined the benches, cups of warm wine in hand.

The princess arrived alone.

The prince had not been invited.

Or so she thought.

As she stepped inside, the Dowager Empress smiled — thin, serene, sharp as glass.

“So lovely,” the old woman said. “I do hope you’ll recite something. Perhaps… a farewell poem?”

There was a quiet chuckle from the ladies nearby.

A servant moved to pour her a cup.

Meilan’s warning echoed in her head.

But before the cup reached her lips—

> “Don’t drink that.”

The voice was low, cold, unmistakable.

The prince stood at the entrance, dressed in ink-black robes, his gaze like winter frost. The room went still.

A heartbeat of silence passed.

He walked to her side and took the cup himself, raising it toward the light.

> “Yew bark,” he said. “Poison — clever, slow, difficult to trace.”

The Dowager's smile did not falter. “How odd… Perhaps the servants made a mistake.”

He looked at her — his own grandmother — and said nothing.

Only turned to the guards behind him.

> “Have the server taken for questioning.”

The young servant trembled as she was dragged away.

The gathering broke apart like scattered leaves.

That evening, back in her chambers, the princess sat by the window, fingers curled around her sleeves.

> “Why did you come?” she asked, when the prince appeared again — unannounced, as always.

“I was informed of the gathering,” he said. “And I… suspected something.”

Her voice was quiet. “You suspected they would try to kill me.”

He didn’t deny it.

> “You’re more dangerous than they expected,” he said. “That makes you inconvenient.”

She turned to face him. “And do you also wish I were dead?”

He looked at her for a long time — too long.

And then, for the first time, his voice cracked — barely noticeable.

> “No.”

She blinked.

He said nothing more. Only turned to leave. But before he reached the door, she asked:

> “Why do you hate me?”

His shoulders stiffened.

> “I don’t hate you.”

He didn’t face her, but his voice was low — a voice filled not with anger, but memory.

> “When I was twelve, my mother was sent away. Quietly. No trial. No explanation. They said she was too foreign. Too proud. Too clever. She died alone in the mountains.”

> “She came from a defeated state too.”

>"Your kingdom has always been like, hasn't it?" She asked.

Silence wrapped around them like fog.

None did not reply. Not with words.

Only this:

> “I will not die quietly,” she whispered. “No matter how high these walls are.”

He didn’t move.

But he didn’t leave.

That night, rain tapped softly on the rooftops.

Two souls, once strangers.

Now sharing the quiet weight of knowing what it means —

to survive where they were never meant to belong.