Chapter 1: The Unwanted Proposal
The air in the throne room tasted like dust and hot gold. Leona let his head loll against the high back of the chair—a gilded thing they’d placed beside the actual throne, just for today. A consolation prize. The sun, bleeding out through the stained-glass windows, threw fractured rubies across the polished stone floor. It was too bright. Too ceremonial. His tail, a restless, heavy thing, twitched once against the leg of the chair. He stifled a yawn that felt like it started in his toes.
A murmur ran through the gathered courtiers like a dry wind through grass. He didn’t need to look to know who had entered. The temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees, a sudden, pristine chill cutting through the savanna’s baked breath.
And then there he was.
Vil Schoenheit moved as if the concept of awkwardness had been personally invented for lesser beings. His posture was a straight line, a challenge. He was dressed in some kind of fitted, pale grey suit that looked wildly out of place against the warm ochre and earthy tones of the hall. Like a pearl dropped in the dirt. His hair, the colour of winter moonlight, was swept back from a sharp, handsome face. His eyes, a cold amethyst, swept the room, assessing, dismissing, before landing on the throne.
And then sliding, with palpable reluctance, to Leona.
Leona met that gaze with half-lidded boredom. He offered a slow, deliberate blink.
The herald’s voice boomed, echoing under the vaulted ceiling. “Presenting Vil Schoenheit, of the Kingdom of Sunset Savannah’s honored ally, the Queendom of the Shifting Sands. Proposed spouse to His Royal Highness, Prince Leona Kingscholar.”
Proposed spouse. The words hung in the air, absurd and heavy.
Vil completed his approach and offered a flawless bow—not too deep, not too shallow. Calculated. “Your Majesty,” he said to Leona’s brother on the throne, his voice smooth as polished stone. Then he turned the barest fraction. “Prince Leona.”
Leona didn’t stand. He just arched one brow. “Took your time getting here. Lose your way?”
A flicker—microscopic—in Vil’s perfect composure. “The journey was long. One prefers to arrive… presentable.”
“One does,” Leona drawled, letting his gaze travel over Vil with an exaggerated slowness. “Mission accomplished. You look like you’re about to attend a funeral. Your own, maybe.”
The courtiers held their breath. Leona’s brother, King Faleena, shifted on the throne. “Leona,” he said, a low warning.
Vil’s smile was brittle, beautiful. “I was prepared for the… rustic charm. The directness is a bit more than anticipated, but not unexpected.”
“Yeah? What’d you expect?”
“A certain lack of refinement.” Vil’s eyes scanned Leona’s own attire—loose, dark, comfortable, decidedly un-royal for the occasion. “I was not misinformed.”
Leona’s ears flattened slightly against his head. He felt a low growl building in his chest and swallowed it down into a scoff. “Refinement’s overrated. Gets in the way of actually living.”
“And does all this living,” Vil’s gesture took in Leona’s languid slump, the dismissive tilt of his chin, “involve any actual doing? Or is it primarily an aesthetic of napping in sunbeams?”
A few courtiers gasped. Leona felt his lips pull back from his teeth, not quite a smile. This prim, polished peacock had claws. Interesting. Annoying, but interesting.
“Doing is exhausting,” Leona said, finally levering himself up from the chair. He unfolded to his full height, which was a head taller than Vil. He saw the other man’s eyes narrow, a slight, involuntary tensing of his shoulders. Good. “Why run when you can ambush? Why chase when you can let the prey come to you?”
“A philosophy of indolence.”
“A philosophy of efficiency.” Leona took a slow step closer. He caught a scent—clean, like cold water and something floral, utterly foreign here. It irritated him. It also made the air in his lungs feel strangely thin. “You reek of effort. Of trying too hard.”
Vil didn’t retreat. He lifted his chin, meeting Leona’s gaze directly. The setting sun caught in his eyes, making them gleam like hard jewels. “And you reek of wasted potential. It’s frankly offensive.”
The silence now was absolute, tight as a drumhead.
King Faleena cleared his throat. “The formal introductions are complete. Vil, you will be shown to your chambers. You and Leona will dine together tonight. Privately.”
Great. A forced meal with a walking insult.
Vil gave another perfect bow. “As Your Majesty wishes.” He turned to leave, his movements still graceful, but Leona didn’t miss the stiff set of his shoulders.
As Vil passed him, Leona spoke, his voice a low rumble meant for Vil’s ears alone. “Welcome to the savanna, Princess. Try not to get dust on your pretty shoes.”
Vil paused. He didn’t look back. “And try not to snore too loudly during your after-dinner nap, Your Lazy Highness.”
He walked away, the click of his impeccable shoes echoing in the hush.
Leona watched him go, the strange, cold scent lingering. Irritation burned in his gut, hot and familiar. But underneath it, a curious, unwelcome thread of something else. Not interest. Definitely not. It was the prickling feeling of being seen, of being assessed and found wanting by someone whose opinion, for some stupid reason, might just matter a fraction more than the others.
He slumped back into his chair, the gilded wood uncomfortable against his spine. The throne room felt different. The heat was the same, the dust motes still danced in the ruby light, but the space Vil had occupied now felt charged, empty and significant at once.
Dinner was going to be a pain.
Dinner was going to be a pain.
The private dining hall was only marginally less imposing than the throne room. A long table of dark wood stretched between them, laid with gleaming silver and porcelain so white it hurt the eyes under the soft glow of the crystal chandeliers. Platters of food steamed between them—spiced meats, flatbreads, roasted vegetables smelling of cumin and fire. It was food for tearing with your hands, for feeling the heat on your fingers.
Vil looked at his fork as if it might be contaminated.
Leona didn’t wait for ceremony. He ripped a piece of flatbread, piled meat onto it, and took a large bite. He chewed slowly, watching Vil dab the corners of his mouth with a linen napkin after a single, cautious bite of a plain roasted vegetable.
“They have food where you’re from, right?” Leona said around his mouthful. “Or do you just photosynthesize?”
“We have food,” Vil replied, his voice clipped. “We also have conversation. Or is talking also too strenuous an activity for Your Highness?”
“Talking’s fine. Whining is what’s exhausting.” Leona leaned back, sprawling in his chair. “So. You paint your nails?”
Vil’s hand, which had been reaching for his water glass, paused. His nails were, in fact, perfectly manicured, a pale, iridescent pearl. “I maintain my appearance. It’s a matter of discipline and respect. Concepts which, I’m gathering, are foreign here.”
“Discipline.” Leona snorted. “You keep using that word. All I see is a bunch of unnecessary rules. Like not using your hands to eat good food.” He scooped up another handful, grease glistening on his fingers.
“It’s called civility.”
“It’s called being scared of a little dirt.” Leona licked his thumb, staring straight at Vil. “Life’s messy. You can either get in there and live it, or you can stand on the sidelines worrying about your cuticles. Your choice.”
Vil placed his fork down with a precise click. The sound was abnormally loud in the room. “And you have chosen to ‘live it’ from a horizontal position, is that it? While your brother rules, while your kingdom thrives around you, you… what? Sulk? Nap? Criticize those who actually put in the effort?”
The words, so cleanly delivered, hit a mark Leona didn’t like having touched. A low growl vibrated in his throat. “You know nothing about this kingdom. Or me.”
“I know what I see. A crown prince in everything but name, blessed with strength and standing, who does nothing but waste it.” Vil’s amethyst eyes were glacial, dissecting. “It’s the greatest sin of all. Wasted potential. It’s ugly.”
Ugly. The word hung between them, sharper than any knife on the table.
Something in Leona snapped. The lazy veneer cracked, showing the ferocity beneath. He leaned forward, his claws unsheathing just enough to scrape against the wood of the table. “You want to see effort? You want to see what this blessed strength can do? I could reduce this entire table to splinters before you could blink, you preening, perfumed popinjay.”
Vil didn’t flinch. A faint, cold smile touched his lips. “There. Was that so hard? A spark. A flicker of something besides apathy. It’s almost an improvement.”
Leona stared at him. The anger was hot, but underneath it was something worse: a terrifying, grudging fascination. This person was not afraid of him. They were disappointed. It was a novel feeling, and it tasted bitter.
He deflated suddenly, the rage receding as quickly as it came, leaving him feeling hollow and tired. He looked at the feast, at the gulf of polished wood between them. “Why are you even here?” he asked, his voice dropping, almost weary. “Someone like you… you could have anyone. Why agree to this? To be shackled to this?” He gestured at himself, at the room, at the entire situation.
For the first time, Vil’s perfect composure showed a real fracture. He looked down at his plate, his brow furrowing slightly. The silence stretched, filled only by the crackle of the torches in their sconces.
“My reasons are my own,” he said finally, but the words lacked their usual edged certainty. He looked up, and his gaze was different now—less judgmental, more searching. “Do you truly do nothing? All day?”
Leona let out a short, humorless laugh. “I do what I want. Today, I wanted to watch the clouds over the western ridge. They built up like towers, anvils of rain that never fell. The light on the grass… it changes by the minute.” He hadn’t meant to say that. It slipped out, soft and unbidden.
Vil was watching him, truly watching him. The disdain had melted into something more puzzled. “You observe.”
“I exist. It’s enough for most.”
“It wouldn’t be enough for me.” Vil’s statement was simple, factual.
“I know.” Leona grabbed his goblet, drinking deeply. The wine was spiced and warm. “That’s why this is a disaster.”
The word seemed to make the air heavier.
Vil picked up his fork again, pushing a piece of vegetable around his plate. “This marriage is an alliance. A political reality. We don’t have to… understand each other. We simply have to coexist.”
“Coexist.” Leona repeated the word, tasting its emptiness. “Sounds thrilling.”
A servant approached nervously to refill Vil’s water glass. In his nervousness, the young man’s elbow jostled Vil’s arm, knocking his fork from his hand. It clattered against the plate, then spun off the edge of the table, hitting the stone floor with a shrill ping.
The servant froze, face ashen. “F-forgive me, my lord!”
Vil looked at the fork on the floor. A tiny, almost imperceptible twitch pulled at his eye. It was a flaw. A smudge on the perfection of the evening. He took a slow, controlled breath.
Leona saw it all—the panic of the servant, the seething, contained eruption in Vil’s rigid shoulders. He saw Vil open his mouth, doubtless to deliver a frosty, devastating reprimand.
“Get out,” Leona said to the servant, his voice a low rumble.
The servant flinched, bowing deeply before scrambling away.
Vil turned his cold gaze on Leona. “I was capable of handling that.”
“Yeah, I know,” Leona said, leaning down. He picked up the fallen fork himself. He looked at it, then at Vil’s pristine place setting. Instead of handing it back, he deliberately placed the soiled fork right next to Vil’s spotless knife.
“There,” Leona said, a sharp, challenging grin spreading across his face. “Now your perfect setting has a story. A little disaster of its own.”
Vil stared at the fork as if it were a poisoned spider. His jaw tightened. The controlled rage Leona had sensed earlier now shimmered around him like heat off the dunes at noon. This was the breaking point. The meticulously constructed composure reached its limit.
Without a word, Vil stood. His chair didn’t scrape; he moved it back with an eerie, silent precision. He looked down at Leona, his expression unreadable but for a storm in his eyes.
“You are exactly what I feared you would be,” Vil said, his voice terribly quiet. “And I am a fool for having hoped, for even a second, that I was wrong.”
He turned and walked out, his steps measured and silent on the stone. He didn’t slam the door. He closed it with a soft, final click that echoed in the sudden emptiness of the hall.
Leona was left alone at the ruined table, the scent of cold spice and Vil’s fading, clean fragrance hanging in the air. He looked at the empty chair, the untouched food, the single, offending fork lying beside the perfect knife.
The disaster was complete. And it sat in his gut, a cold, heavy stone of something that felt uncomfortably like regret.
The regret was a physical thing, sour and solid in his throat. Leona pushed the platter of spiced meat away, the rich aroma now turning his stomach. He stared at the empty doorway, half-expecting Vil to reappear, to deliver another perfectly crafted cutting remark. But there was only the quiet, the flicker of torchlight, and the humiliating echo of his own words.
He’d wanted to provoke, to peel back that polished surface and see what spilled out. Mission accomplished, he guessed. Oil and vinegar.
With a growl of pure frustration, he shoved back from the table and stalked out of the hall, not towards his own chambers, but out into the night.
The savanna air was a living blanket, warm and thick with the scent of dry grass and distant rain. The sky was a vast spill of stars, indifferent to his petty drama. He walked without direction, following the worn path past the training yards, his tail lashing at unseen irritants. Ugly. The word stuck in his fur, a burr he couldn’t shake.
He heard the scuffle before he saw it. A sharp, pained yelp from the royal kennels, followed by the low, threatening snarl of one of the older houndmasters.
“Stupid beast! Won’t learn, will you?”
Leona rounded the corner of the low stone building to see the houndmaster, a grizzled man named Gorvan, raising a switch against a cowering, young sand-fox hound. The animal, all long legs and oversized ears, had knocked over a water bowl, and the damp patch in the dust looked like a capital offense in Gorvan’s eyes.
“Hey.”
Leona’s voice was a low rumble. It cut through the night.
Gorvan froze, the switch held high. His face paled in the moonlight. “Y-Your Highness! I didn’t see you. This wretched thing—”
“Drop it.”
The switch fell into the dust. Leona didn’t even look at the man. His eyes were on the hound, its ribs trembling, a faint whine escaping its throat. He walked forward, each step slow and deliberate. He crouched, ignoring the dirt on his trousers.
“You’re a mess,” he murmured to the animal, his voice completely different now—a rough gentleness. He extended a hand, letting the hound sniff his knuckles. It flinched, then nosed forward, a tentative lick on his skin. Leona scooped up the overturned bowl with his other hand. “Go on. Get me some fresh water.”
Gorvan scrambled to obey, returning with a full bucket. Leona filled the bowl and set it down. The hound lapped at it desperately, water splashing everywhere again. Leona just watched, a faint, almost imperceptible softening around his eyes.
“He’s not wretched,” Leona said, not turning to Gorvan. His tone was conversational, but it held a finality that brooked no argument. “He’s clumsy. And you’re impatient. Try patience. It’s less work than anger.”
He stood, his knees cracking. He gave the hound one final scratch behind its velvety ears, then turned to leave. And there, standing in the shadow of a towering acacia tree, was Vil.
He was wrapped in a thin, silver robe over his sleeping clothes, his hair loose around his shoulders. He looked like a ghost, or a moonbeam given form. How long had he been there?
Their eyes met across the moonlit yard. Vil’s expression was unreadable in the dim light, but his posture was less rigid than before, simply… observing.
Leona felt a fresh wave of irritation. Of course. The perfect prince had seen his little performance. Now he’d have more ammunition—the soft-hearted beast-man, playing with dogs.
“Come to criticize the scenery?” Leona called out, the gravel back in his voice. “Or just taking a stroll in your cell?”
Vil stepped into a patch of moonlight. He didn’t rise to the bait. His gaze flicked to the hound, now curled peacefully by its full bowl, then back to Leona.
“I couldn’t sleep,” Vil said simply. His voice was quiet, stripped of its earlier frost. “The walls feel too close.”
Leona understood that feeling more than he’d ever admit. The castle was a beautiful cage. He shrugged, aiming for nonchalance. “Go onto the western ramparts. The walls are lower. You can see… everything.”
It was an offer. A stupid, simple offer. He expected Vil to sneer and turn away.
Vil studied him for a long moment. The disdain wasn’t there. Instead, there was a calculating, weary curiosity. “Will you show me?”
The question hung in the air, unexpected. Leona stared at him. This was a trick. It had to be.
But Vil just waited, his face open and, for the first time, seemingly without a hidden agenda. He just looked… tired of being trapped.
“Fine,” Leona grunted, because he couldn’t think of a good reason to say no. “But if you complain about the stairs, I’m leaving you there.”
The path to the western ramparts was narrow and unused, winding up through the older parts of the fortress. Leona walked ahead, silent, listening to the soft shuffle of Vil’s slippers on the stone behind him. They didn’t speak. The only sounds were the distant call of a night bird and the wind brushing through the grasses far below.
He pushed open a small, heavy wooden door, and the vast, open sky greeted them. The rampart was a wide, flat stretch of warm stone, overlooking the endless, sleeping savanna. The world was painted in shades of indigo and silver, rolling out to a horizon that seemed to swallow the stars.
Vil stepped past him, his breath catching. He walked to the parapet, his hands resting on the sun-warmed stone. For a long time, he just looked. The wind played with his pale hair, and in the moonlight, the sharp perfection of his profile seemed to soften.
“It’s… immense,” Vil whispered, almost to himself. “It makes the court feel like a dollhouse.”
Leona leaned against the doorway, watching him. “It’s just land.”
“It’s freedom,” Vil corrected softly. He turned, leaning back against the stone. “You watch the clouds here. You said that.”
“Sometimes.”
“Why?”
Leona looked out at the darkness, considering a sarcastic answer. Instead, he found himself saying, “Because they change. They don’t have a duty. They just are. They build up, they break apart, they go where the wind takes them.” He snorted. “Sounds stupid when I say it out loud.”
Vil was silent. Then, “It doesn’t sound stupid. It sounds… honest.”
That word, from him, was a shock. Leona looked back at him. Vil’s arms were crossed, not in defiance, but as if he was holding himself together. The moonlight caught the faint, tired lines under his eyes.
“This is my life now,” Vil said, gesturing vaguely back towards the heart of the castle. “A political transaction. A polished piece in a treaty. My ambitions… my dreams… they are all to be neatly folded and put away on a shelf. For the good of the queendom.” He said it without self-pity, just a flat, cold acceptance that was worse than any tantrum.
Leona knew that feeling. The crushing weight of being a spare part, a backup plan with teeth. He’d built his own cage out of laziness and cynicism. Vil’s cage was made of duty and polished manners. Same prison, different bars.
“You think I don’t get it?” Leona’s voice was rough. “The second son. The one with all the power and none of the purpose. The beast in the palace.” He pushed off from the doorway, taking a few steps onto the rampart. “You think your trap is any prettier than mine?”
Vil watched him, his violet eyes searching Leona’s face in the dim light. “You could leave. You sneak out to watch clouds. You protect clumsy hounds. You have… options.”
“And go where?” Leona spread his hands. “This is what I am. This dust, this heat. This is it. And you…” He let out a short, harsh laugh. “You’re stuck with it. With me. A prince who’d rather sleep than rule, who thinks ‘refinement’ is an insult. You’re Beauty trapped with the Beast, and we both know how that story ends. You can’t fix me. And you sure as hell can’t love this.”
The words hung in the air, raw and ugly. An admission he hadn’t planned to make.
Vil didn’t flinch. He pushed away from the wall and took a step towards Leona. Not too close, but closer than they’d ever been without anger between them. He looked up, meeting Leona’s defensive, golden-eyed gaze.
“You’re right,” Vil said, his voice quiet. “I can’t fix you. And I don’t know what love has to do with any of this. This is an arrangement. A practical, political, and deeply inconvenient arrangement.” He took a slow breath. “But tonight, you showed a clumsy animal kindness when no one was watching. You brought me here, to the one place that doesn’t feel like a cage, without me even having to ask. So perhaps you are not only what you pretend to be.”
He turned and walked back towards the door, pausing at the threshold. He glanced over his shoulder, the starlight framing him for a moment.
“And for the record,” he added, the faintest hint of something like dry humor in his tone. “The ‘Beauty’ in that story was an insufferable know-it-all. And the ‘Beast’ was the one who learned how to be kind.” He didn’t smile. But the permanent frost in his gaze had thawed, just a degree. “Goodnight, Leona.”
He disappeared down the dark stairwell, leaving Leona alone under the infinite sky, the cold stone of regret in his gut slowly warming, cracking, turning into something else entirely. Something terrifyingly like a possibility.