Chapter 3 Blood and Blossoms

"The most beautiful lies are whispered under blooming trees."

ELIRA

The orchard was starting to bloom.

Pale-pink petals floated like ash on the midnight wind as Elira paced between the trees, cloak trailing behind her like a half-forgotten thought. Her heart was a wild thing now an unbroken colt galloping in her chest every time she saw him.

And she was addicted to the gallop.

He was late tonight.

She sat on a moss-covered bench carved by her great-grandfather-the same bench where treaties were once signed, and kings once whispered alliances. Now it held a girl in love with someone she should never have met.

"Kael..." she whispered to no one. "Don't make me wait."

Behind her, something moved.

KAEL

He should have stayed home.

Every voice in his head screamed it his mother's warnings, Jorin's curses, even his own logic. But Kael wasn't built for logic anymore. Not when the echo of her voice still rang in his blood. Not when he woke up reaching for her in dreams.

So he climbed over the orchard wall with a satchel of wild roses and shaking hands.

He'd picked every one from the cliff path. His palms were bleeding.

But he didn't care.

Tonight, he would kiss her.

THE MOMENT

They saw each other at the same time.

She rose. He froze.

The petals swirled between them like secrets.

And Kael did the impossible: he smiled.

"You're bleeding," she said softly, seeing the scratches on his fingers.

"For you," he shrugged. "I didn't bring a crown. But I brought these."

She took the roses slowly.

"I've never received flowers from someone who didn't want something."

Kael tilted his head. "What do you want, Elira?"

Her answer was a whisper of lips against his.

For one breathless, trembling second, time stopped.

Their first kiss was clumsy and aching and full of things they hadn't dared to say.

Then someone screamed.

THE GUARDS

They came out of the shadows like wolves-six men in royal silver, blades drawn.

Kael had just enough time to pull her behind him.

"Don't!" she cried. "He's with me-!"

But they didn't listen.

One slammed Kael into the tree trunk so hard the bark cracked. Another struck him in the gut. Blood bloomed on his shirt like spilled wine.

"Elira!" he gasped, even as they dragged him to his knees.

The guards seized her too, gentler-but only because they knew who she was. She struggled. Screamed. Bit one of them. It didn't matter.

Kael was shackled.

She was surrounded.

And the Queen was waiting.

THE THRONE ROOM – NIGHT

They dragged Kael in like a criminal.

Bloodied, bruised, eyes burning.

Elira stood beside her mother on the dais, still in her orchard cloak, face pale but defiant.

The Queen did not raise her voice. She didn't need to.

"You humiliated this family," she said, eyes never leaving her daughter. "You risked war. You risked scandal. All for... this?"

Kael lifted his chin. "This is not her fault."

The Queen arched a brow. "And yet it is her crown you've touched."

Elira stepped forward. "If he's punished, I will speak to the court myself. I will burn the lie."

"You will do no such thing," the Queen snapped. "You are a royal. You will act like it."

"Then kill me," Elira said.

The silence was immediate and suffocating.

Kael blinked. "Elira-"

"No," she said, fire in her voice now. "If love is treason, then cut my throat now. I'd rather bleed in truth than rot in obedience."

THE DECREE

The Queen didn't kill them.

She was crueler than that.

Kael was exiled-marked with the royal seal burned into his forearm. If he returned to the kingdom, he would be executed on sight.

Elira was locked in the Tower of Dawn. Alone. Stripped of her title until she "remembered her place."

They were torn apart that night.

No goodbye.

No last words.

Just blood. Blossoms. And the sound of something sacred breaking.

In the darkness of the tower, Elira scratched Kael's name into the stone with a shard of mirror.

In the wilderness beyond the kingdom, Kael stared at the fire burning his skin, and swore one day-one day-he would come back.

Not as a blacksmith.

But as something else.