Five years had passed since that fateful day.
Now, Princess Nazar had become the very embodiment of grace. Her beauty was serene, like a spring breeze drifting through the halls of the Flarghos Palace. She spoke in soft, measured tones, carrying in her gaze an unbreakable royal pride. Even the servants whispered in admiration as she passed: "Look at her... Nazar, the Flame Flower... the true heir to the throne."
But Nazar was not alone in the spotlight.
Always by her side stood Prince Fairo. He was a quiet boy, with eyes that glowed with a hidden fire and chestnut hair touched by embers. They were a legendary duo within the Kingdom of Nairon; it was said that the future would be ruled by hands of fire and faces of light. Everyone dreamed of a happy ending destined for them.
But... there was a shadow that only those who dared to look could see.
She bore no title, nor did she wear a crown. Yet, she possessed something else entirely.
Dalirina.
A maid? Perhaps in the official ledgers. But in the halls of the palace, she moved as if the very walls recognized her footsteps. Her hair was white tinged with gold, her eyes were icy blue like an eternal glacier, and her skin was pale as snow, flushed with a vibrancy the court princesses lacked.
Dalirina was not calm like Nazar. She was loud, impulsive, and laughed from the heart, filling the empty spaces around her with life.
In the palace's back garden, where the scent of jasmine lingered, the three of them would hide from the prying eyes of the court.
"Look at them," one of the court ladies whispered with indignation. "How does that girl dare to touch the Prince's hand?"
No one answered her. Everyone knew Dalirina was not like the other servants, and no one possessed the courage to stop her.
One day, sunlight filtered through the leaves. Dalirina was laughing loudly, fruit juice dripping down the tip of her nose.
Fairo, watching her intensely, could not help but smile. He reached out and, with a casual gesture, wiped the juice from her nose with his finger.
In that microsecond, time froze.
Nazar, watching from across the garden, smiled at first... but her expression withered, fading into the shadow of a quiet jealousy—not toward Dalirina herself, but toward the place she held in Fairo's heart. For the first time, despite her crown, Nazar felt "distant."
Fairo suddenly broke the silence, rising abruptly. — "I'm late for sword training! My instructor will lose his mind if I'm tardy again."
Nazar rushed after him, trying to regain her royal composure. — "And I have etiquette lessons... boring as always."
The three laughed together, and then they departed.
Once they were gone, a heavy silence fell. Dalirina remained alone in the garden.
She sat on the grass, staring into the void. She wasn't laughing anymore. Her fingers toyed with a wilted flower petal, and she sighed. It wasn't the sigh of a maid tired from labor, but the sigh of a girl beginning to feel the weight of the titles she did not possess.
— "The heir, the prince, and the orphan..." she whispered to herself, her voice too faint for anyone but the wind to hear.
She brushed the spot where Fairo had touched her nose, feeling a strange ache in her chest. It wasn't jealousy; it was a late realization. The gap between them, despite their laughter, was beginning to widen. She had started to notice the gazes of the servants, and the fractured look in Nazar's eyes that the princess tried so hard to hide.
Dalirina closed her eyes, wishing time would stop in that moment—before politics tore them apart, and before the crown forced Nazar, and destiny forced Fairo, onto a path where she had no place.
Meanwhile, from behind the trees, eyes watched Dalirina with chilling indifference—eyes that harbored no affection for the princess, nor for the prince.
The first chapter of their lives had reached its end, without them ever realizing it.