“Greetings, Miss Talia. I am here to pick up Her Majesty.”

A deep voice cut through the warm hum of the hotel lobby. Sena’s heels came to a gentle halt on the polished floor as she lifted her gaze.

The man before her, a Seiryan, bowed with precision. He wore a dark western suit, broad-shouldered, hair black as midnight, eyes sharp with a quiet dignity. The first moment Sena met him, she knew he was no ordinary attendant. He was the queen’s shield, a man whose life was pledged to the crown.

Sena had worked with dozens of high-profile patrons across Elyndra, but this was the first time she served a monarch from a kingdom wrapped in secrecy.
A land ruled by old customs.
A land that once stood as an enemy of the western alliance.
And her client was no other than its absolute ruler, the Queen of Seirya.

Sena adjusted the fur draped across her shoulders and straightened her posture. She offered the man a bright, practiced smile, one that softened the answer he likely did not want.

“Her Majesty is still in the café. Our meeting finished early today.” Her words came in careful Falkenic, a language that still felt strange in her mouth. The very tongue that had been unofficially chosen to bind three nations once at war.

The remnants of the war she despised, stubborn as black ink refusing to fade from white paper.

“Well understood, Miss Talia.”
He offered a polite smile, bowed, and stepped past her.

Her gaze followed the queen’s shield,

As she expected, the moment he entered the café hall. His steps faltered, shoulders tightening, a clutched fist on his side. Sena watched the unraveling of a moment that shouldn’t belong in this peaceful era.

I knew it.

She didn’t have to guess the reason for his sudden tension. She understood instantly.

With a soft sigh, she stepped beside him. Her gaze followed his into the café, toward the two figures seated beneath the gentle morning light.

The son of Falkenreich military general and the queen of Seirya.
Sharing coffee in a glamorous café like normal civilians.

A scene that should have been ordinary in the era after the war, yet was anything but, to those who knew their history.

“If I may offer a word of advice,” Sena murmured, barely above a whisper, “let them be.”

His shoulders stiffened further, yet he did not answer.
In the flicker of his dark eyes, she saw the battle of a man bounded by duty. 

Was there any room left for peace between those two?

A queen and the man world called her captor.

Or so the newspapers insisted.

Yet Sena knew.. 

No headline would ever capture what truly passed between them across that table—on this very soil that had once witnessed their shared ruin.

“I apologize, Miss Talia. I must attend to Her Majesty.”

Even if the queen herself wished otherwise, her people had already decided what was best for her. Because.. the life of the crown was never hers to own.

The queen’s shield dipped into a polite bow. His movements appeared calm, but Sena caught the tension in his stride as he moved toward the seated monarch, each step faster and heavier than the last.

From where she stood, Sena saw the shift in Reina’s expression the moment her guard approached.
The tremble in her hazel eyes vanished.
The distant look melted away.
The perfect queen had finally returned.

She lifted her hands up, but the man rose and withdrew from the scene, walking away before she could even stand. An act that should have been humiliating for any monarch.

But Sena knew better.

An ordinary captor would not make the queen’s expression break into colors other than gray. 

Yes, gray.

A color that the queen had embodied like a cloak, a color that shouldn’t belong to her world. A color that contrasted the scenery of the first day she met Reina in this very room, at this very hour, when the summer leaves outside the windows had deepened into a dark, vivid green and the world had seemed alive again.

The day a woman who had lived her whole life in silent compliance finally atone her sin. 

*****

“Miss Talia, I would like you to be the art director of a Christmas concert I plan to host in Tuvana.”

The young woman, almost too young to bear the weight of a crown, sat gracefully on a rococo sofa beneath the morning light. Her Elyndrian flowed effortlessly, a rare skill for a Seiryan of her station. A gentle smile adorned her thin lips.

Her dark hair was swept into an elegant updo, held in place by a jade pin shaped like a blooming golden peony, a symbol Sena knew reserved only for the royal bloodline of Seirya.

“A Christmas concert?”

Sena returned the monarch’s gaze with her warmest smile. Her posture radiated like a sunflower turning toward the sun. The headpiece in her short, bobbed chestnut hair glimmered beneath the tall windows of the Pera Hotel; the silk belt on her low-waisted dress caught the light like a ribbon of dawn. Sena was the image of the new era where women started to embrace practical modern dresses.  A striking contrast to the queen’s high-necked, cerulean tunic dress. 

“I was… moved by the art installation you presented last week,” Reina continued. “Vibrant, dreamlike. Almost unreal, Miss Talia.”

“It is an honor to hear that, Your Majesty.” Sena lowered her head, then added gently, “Please..call me Sena.”

Reina’s smile deepened. She lifted a porcelain cup and took a small sip.

Sena studied her more closely. Elyndra may no longer have a monarchy, but its old nobility never fully dissolved with the tides of revolution. Status still shaped every interaction, and Sena.. a commoner and artist was keenly aware of the invisible line she should keep with the monarch.

Refusing this project was not an option.

That is why the idea of war to revolutionize is meaningless.

“Miss Sena,” Reina said, cup still cradled between her hands, “your work carries the soul I want this concert to express.”

“The soul?” Sena echoed. The word surprised her.

Soul was not the choice of word she expected from the young queen.
Especially when sitting before her stirred the old dissonances Sena had tried to bury.

Her mother’s voice whispered from the past..
Those Seiryans…
The broken melody clawed its way back.
Your brothers…

Sena’s fingers curled into a fist.

“Peace,” Reina continued softly, pulling Sena back to the present. “Peace itself is an act of quiet rebellion.”

Sena inhaled, steadying her voice. A voice, polite yet firm came out of her, words that she could not believe came from her. 

“Why weave peace with a nation that once stood as your enemy, Your Majesty?”
Her tone remained respectful, but firm. “Why not hold the concert in your own land?”

Reina’s eyes widened. Sena knew she had crossed an unspoken line, but she could not help it, she needed the truth.

The café sounds faded into a hush. Only the faint gramophone playing an old piano tune lingered. Outside, summer leaves rustled, casting shifting green reflections across the floor.

Then Reina’s lips softened into a serene smile. She folded her hands atop the table, gaze steady with unwritten longing. 

“Because closure must be found where it hurts the most.”
Her lashes lowered as though she were remembering a distant, aching past. The jade pin in her hair shimmered.
“And that place is here, in Elyndra.. where blood was spilled by all of us, and where we now search for a way to heal.”

When she opened her eyes again, her hazel irises glowed warm gold, gentler than the morning sun.
In them, Sena saw a woman who had once faced cruelty, yet still sought healing.
Just like herself.

Sena exhaled and smiled, this time without effort.

“Your Majesty… my brothers were stationed at the border during the war,” she said quietly. “We never learned what happened to them. Only that they were gone, one month before the declaration of peace.”

Reina’s hands tightened around her own.
“I am sorry, Miss Sena. I understand your grief.”

Sena shook her head. She had never blamed Reina; 

Seirya had suffered far worse than Elyndra. Perhaps even the royal family most of all.

“No, Your Majesty. If anything… I fear you might not want to work with an artist like me.”
She bowed her head. “I spoke out of turn.”

But Reina was more resolute than her delicate appearance suggested.

“No, Miss Sena. Your story helps me understand the soul in your art. If you are willing… please consider my offer.”

There was one truth Sena did not give voice to that day, that the person she hated most was herself, for staying silent when she should have spoken.

So she lifted her head, and answered with sincerity,

“Then let us build that bridge together, Your Majesty.”

Ever-since that fated day, she prayed that the queen would one day find her own closure. 

*****

The steady hum of the car filled the air, soft and constant, a silent consolation for her running mind. Flickers of voices and colors she had tried so hard to bury returned, like an unwanted dissonance in the peaceful life she had built. 

He is a man who never listens, I know that.. And yet..

Her slender fingers drifted toward her left hand, brushing an empty spot, consoling a phantom that no longer existed. 

Surge of memories crashed into her, clutching at her chest like an invisible hand. She closed her eyes, willing the ache back into the abyss where she had locked it away. 

Outside the window, the car crossed the bridge from the western district into the east. Cobbledstones turned a washed-out gray beneath the heavy sky. A typical November day where the sun and the clouds continuously battled, changing shape as if to conquer the hours. 

You could never tell what November would bring. 

“Your Majesty, we have arrived at the meeting place.” Kei’s voice pulled her from the dream. 

Reina opened her eyes and glanced to the car window. Several man in dark coats waited before the building, their postures rigid with protocol. 

“Has Daria arrived as well?” 

“Yes, Your Majesty. Ms. Ann informed us that all members of the Seiryan delegation have arrived safely, including Mr. Daria Erdene.” 

Reina inhaled deeply. A trace of winter air slipped into her lungs, bracing and cold. 

If Daria is here, things will proceed smoothly.

“Let’s go, Kei.” 

The car door opened with a soft click. Reina stepped out, her heels sinking slightly into the white gravel as a crisp sound echoed beneath her. The lady she despised in her distant memories was gone. In her place, stood the queen who had learned to weave peace on the very soil that had once destroyed her. 

*****

The memories of her life in those past days had always been tinted in vivid shades.
Deep verdant green, twilight orange, midnight blue.. colors painted across her blank white canvas, empty of sketches, empty of memories.
She had been reborn, like a newborn child.

Her days felt longer than they should, yet eerily peaceful. And on some of those quiet days, the gentle lulls of the piano slipped into her second-floor room, the sign that the master of the villa had returned.

Not long after, a soft knock would always come.

“Miss, the master has requested you to come down for breakfast,” a gentle voice called from behind the door.

Her pencil halted. On the page, an unfinished sketch of a vase curved delicately across the white paper.
In her short time here, she had learned the odd routines of the mysterious Falkenreich man. When he returned in the evening, he never appeared.
But when morning came, the villa filled with piano music, and the maid would summon her, just like today.

She exhaled slowly and stepped down from the bed. Her white nightgown flowed softly as she walked through the wooden hall, following the rhythm of the melody below.

The dining hall sat beside the drawing room, where the piano was. As she passed, she allowed herself a brief glance through the open door, the back of a man, shoulders relaxed, wavy hair catching the soft morning light. 

Her steps paused for a heartbeat before she continued toward the dining room.

The moment she crossed the threshold, she was greeted by the scent of coffee and toasted bread.

“Oh, you’re finally up,” came a voice behind her. She didn’t need to guess who it was.

“Good morning… Johannes.”
She greeted him as he walked past to take the head seat at the table leaving a faint trail of fresh musk behind. The head maid, Mary, approached to pour black coffee into his cup.

“What are you doing there? Go on, take your seat, young lady.”

It had been three weeks since that twilight day, and her own name remained a blank canvas.
So they communicated awkwardly using “you,” or “young lady” whenever he grew impatient… or wanted to tease her.

She finally sat beside the head seat. Mary poured the dark liquid into her porcelain cup, its aroma filling the room. She stared at it for a long while.

“I take it you don’t enjoy coffee?” Johannes broke the stillness.

“It is more interesting to understand why people enjoy it. You… and the rest of Falkenreich.”

A soft laugh escaped him, blooming a small annoyance in her chest.

“Unfortunately, I can’t cater to your picky taste, young lady. Seiryan tea is hard to come by these days.”

“I never said I wanted tea,” she muttered.

“Well, isn’t staring at the cup long enough means almost the same thing?”
He folded his arms, amusement flickering in his eyes, eyes as blue as a clear sky.

Annoyed, she lifted the porcelain cup and finished the bitter liquid in one gulp.
But that only made him laugh more. The sound stirred something in her chest, an oddly warm feeling laced with irritation.

Johannes had heard tales about Seiryans, old-fashioned, rigid, raised in a highly patriarchal society. But nothing about this woman fit that description.

Except the picky taste, perhaps.

She had shown remarkable fluency in several languages, defying every rumor that Seiryans, especially their royalty, lived sheltered and uneducated lives.

Last week, his soldiers had finally confirmed her identity, solidifying his suspicions. Something dark had stirred inside him at the confirmation, something he quickly forced into silence.

But before anything else… she needed a name.

Her memory loss came as a surprise. He had sent aides and doctors, each confirming that the only princess of Seirya had truly forgotten who she was.. at least for now.

“So,” he asked the same question he asked every breakfast,
“have you remembered anything new from your past?”

She exhaled. “Nothing in particular.”

“Nothing?”

“Yes.”

An illogical satisfaction stirred in him.
His gaze drifted to her, her straight dark hair cascading down her back, her small hands holding a slice of toast, the crumbs around her lips, the way she pouted stubbornly at him.

A small grin tugged at his mouth.

I must have gone crazy.

She felt his stare and shifted uneasily, finally trying to speak.

“Emm… I.. “

“Celeste,” he said calmly.

“That will be your name while you search for your identity. We can’t continue talking like two odd animals, can we?”

She never asked why he chose that name.
And he never asked whether she accepted it.

But on that day, a day that felt like summer, yet still too cold for flowers to bloom, a new identity was born beneath the clear, heavenly sky.

*****

Author’s notes: 

Celeste came from the latin word Caelestis that means “Heavenly” or “Celestial”. Can you guess why Johannes choose this name for her? 🙂