Golden Memory, Hidden Desire

And then, one day… Victor arrived to meet her.

The encounter seemed almost predetermined, as if the world itself had slowed to see him cross that threshold. She was married to the man who had vowed to guard his life—

his bodyguard—was hard, keen, a sword of duty and allegiance. But his wife was not. Gentle. Lovely. And her eyes. they saw all he worked so hard to keep hidden. When the bodyguard was gone, she didn't see a prince; she saw a boy hiding in the darkness, shaking and uncertain. Her light, gentle hands became the only solace he had, touching him as though they could rub away the isolation that settled on his bones. Her voice was always soft, a quiet whisper that spoke to the very cavities of his heart, reminding him he wasn't quite by himself.

In the beginning, it was easy—comfort, friendship from shared sorrow and unspoken longing. But heat developed between them like a low flame, and before long, that flame became flame. Each look lingered too long; each touch of skin sent a hidden spark. And when she gazed at him—really at him—he could sense her longing reflected back in his own, the forbidden sound of a love that neither of them could speak. It was heady, risky, but inescapably human.

But passion comes at a cost. Boundaries that never ought to be breached were muddied, and the world they had sculpted in stealth could not survive reality. She started to stray from her husband, beckoned by the boy she comforted, a call she couldn't resist. And he… he fell just as utterly, every stolen kiss and whispered promise drawing him tighter to her. Their affair was a tenuous, smoldering thing—lovely, but doomed.

The inevitability arrived quickly and violently. The betrayal was discovered by her husband. The man who had been his guardian—the one whose sword was vowed to protect—turned on her. Victor recalled the tale, even now, of how her life did not end in some far-off field, but in the hands of the one she had once referred to as her husband. The blood, the terror of it… she had perished under the blade of the man she loved, and that same hand had struck Victor not long after, forsaking him to the shadowy woods, struggling and forsaken.

Victor's throat closed up, a clot building that made it difficult to swallow. That recollection. it wasn't really his to own. But it stuck with him, sticky and persistent, like each throb of heart, each pain, each shudder of yearning and covert shame had been branded into his very marrow. Every piece of it burned through him, fierce and unrelenting. Since coming to consciousness in this body, he hadn't just inherited its blood—minimally, he'd inherited its pain, the subtle, invisible wounds no one could perceive. His fingers quivered, curling over on his knee as if attempting to draw the intangible lines of that distant grief, his lips whispering faintly, "Leave it… this bitter memory…"

Then Anna's voice cut through, clear, teasing, nearly musical, wrenching him out of the depths of remembrance. "My Victor, where are you wandering? Don't tell me you're dreaming about your bride already? Her voice had a warmth that made his chest hurt in a different manner, a combination of irritation and something perilously soft.

He swallowed, the lump in his throat relaxing just enough, and for an instant, the hall and the shadows within it were a little less suffocating.".

His gaze rose, meeting hers. She sat across from him at the table, a mischievous smile playing on her lips, her violet eyes glinting with mischief that could cut through the thickest of moods. Anna's presence always had that effect—gratingly down-to-earth, yet unbearably warm.

From the side, Ania piped up in her small voice, a gentle giggle echoing along with the rhythm of her kicking legs. "Brother's face is strange," she said with a tilted head, her dark eyes shining with curiosity. "Like he's sleeping with his eyes open."

Victor's lips curled up, the slightest possible twitch of a smile in danger of giving him away. He blinked, trying to kick himself into the present. "Uh—yes, Mom. Just. thinking about Sasha, that's all." His voice was clipped, guarded, smooth, perfection-practiced. It was a tiny lie, but one he had mastered the art of using naturally, the sort that sounded like the truth because it was constructed from a grain of it. He adjusted, putting his body into a relaxed, casual pose. A hand passed over the lip of the table absent-mindedly, his fingers curling as if deciding something mundane, but his mind playing with the vision of Sasha—the way the golden strands of her hair shone in light, the soft shape of her mouth, the soft, dangerous allure she exerted.

He could all but sense her heat, the dizzying sweep of her presence, and the idea had his chest constrict.

Anna leaned forward, tilting her head a fraction, her voice low but with a teasing warning that caressed him like a breath. "You are hiding something, Victor. I can tell by your eyes."

Victor laughed softly, a slight flush of heat spreading through his chest at how easily she had pierced his facade. "No, really. Nothing," he replied, though the corner of his smile was a giveaway.

His eyes darted to Ania, who was regarding him with hard, silent interest, biting her lip in a poor attempt not to laugh. Even that small action tightened his chest—a strange combination of amusement and something else, something harder to pin down.

The mere sound of her name—the way it rolled over his mind—roused a tempest within him. Anna raised an eyebrow, interest glinting as sunlight in her eyes, and Ania's wicked little smile grew, pleased with her secret information. Victor knew the falsehood coalescing so easily on his lips, flowing so well, believing not only to them but nearly to himself. But beneath the smooth exterior, a memory pushed against him, insistent, immovable—a shadow that refused to recede.

It was not a memory he had lived through, at least not in this existence, and yet its warmth seared low within his chest, a slow, tempting warmth that traced a shiver down his spine, leaving behind an ache of yearning he could not quite define.

Anna's lips twitched into that wise smile mothers used when they knew more than their children suspected. "Oh, considering what to give her, maybe?

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