Now, those questions no longer matter.
Gently, I fold away the thoughts buried deep within my heart and place the little box into the drawer, letting every memory rest where it belongs.

Tomorrow morning, I will take the earliest carriage back to the land where Caelum and I once lived — where the sunlight was soft, and the memories just warm enough. With no lingering regrets, no longing left behind, I will withdraw from his life as quietly as the season's first breeze, leaving behind only faint footprints in the grandeur of the royal palace.

When I return, I will gently open the window of my room, letting the morning sun slip through the curtains and bathe the lavender blossoms on the sill in golden light. The plants still thrive, each tender stem reaching as though still remembering the hands that once cared for them. I will lean down, touch each fragile petal, and breathe in their delicate fragrance — the scent of a peaceful day once nurtured by him and me.

I will pass through the sitting room, where the old wooden shelves still carry books he once arranged with such care. Each volume — from slim poetry collections to thick tomes of history — bears traces of him, memories of nights he read beneath the soft amber glow of a lamp. I will cradle them gently, placing them back in their rightful places, as though tending to pieces of his soul still lingering between the pages.

And each morning, I will prepare a cup of tea for myself. The kettle will sing, the tea leaves will release their quiet scent, but the sweetness of sugar will be absent. I will sit silently by the window, looking out at the little garden where he once smiled at me, reminding myself that even in his absence, these simple things will go on — even if only as echoes of what once was.

The bed where I wake each day remains cold, as if no warmth ever touched it. And I will learn to grow accustomed to his absence — to the silence that stretches across every corner of this worn room. Yet I will hold it all in my heart, like a beautiful sorrow, a love once radiant that now lingers only in silent traces on the separate paths we walk.

As Caelum once sent me a farewell letter after his coronation, I too swallowed the ache in my chest, held back every tear, and carefully penned my own final words — a reply that could never be spoken aloud. I poured each sentence like fragments of a broken heart, tucked the letter into an envelope, and slipped it into the royal postbox — where, perhaps one day, he might chance upon it.

What I wrote was not reproach, nor plea, but quiet acceptance — a fragile hope that even if we now walk different roads, what we shared still lives, quietly, in the shadows. And I wonder, when he reads that letter, will he understand even a fraction of the things I've held close all this time — the kind of truths no words can ever truly express?

When I think of the girl standing beside him, a silent ache pierces through me. She — with her shining hair, delicate features, and gentle eyes — seems to embody the life I once dreamed of, but could never grasp.

In that moment, the image of us — two young souls who once walked through days of calm, holding hands in quiet afternoons — feels as distant as a dream scattered by the wind. I look at her, and in her eyes I see not only tenderness, but also the faith and hope I once gave to him.

The pain I feel is not jealousy, nor bitterness. It is simply a hollow space that settles softly in my chest, a quiet knowing that everything has changed — and that I, who was once everything to Caelum, am now merely a silent memory fading amidst the tide of time.

Caelum walks forward, firm and noble in his regal attire, eyes fixed ahead with the weight of the crown upon his shoulders. And I — I am caught in the time we left behind, trapped in the days when we still belonged to each other, when everything was whole and untouched by the cruel winds of fate.

I stand there, unmoving, like a ghost of the past, watching his figure disappear into the cheering crowd, burdened by a heaviness I cannot shake. The Caelum of today is an emperor; and I — I am nothing more than a fragment of memory he was forced to leave behind.