The autumn wind slipped through the tower's ancient cracks, carrying with it the earthy scent of damp soil and the soft trail of fallen flower petals swirling in the air. On the highest balcony of Gaia Palace—a secluded sanctuary forbidden to all except those granted the Queen's direct permission—Iris stood alone, a solitary figure against the sprawling horizon. She felt ensnared in an endless labyrinth, each shadowy corner haunted by memories that chained her spirit, while the cool breeze stirred a delicate flame of longing deep within her chest.
Her gown fluttered softly in the wind, yet her body remained motionless, as though she were a bronze statue carved to watch silently over the edge of the world. Behind her silver-blue eyes, however, a quiet tempest roiled—not stirred by war, nor diplomatic threats, nor even the ancient magic threatening to unravel reality. Instead, her heart quivered, caught in a fragile snare woven from love and duty, aching for the warmth and laughter that once filled the hollow spaces of her existence.
It was not these fears that gripped her soul.
It was one single word.
One name.
Rinoa.
Iris caught the name as it slipped softly from Fitran's lips, each utterance slicing through him like a silent dagger, reopening wounds that refused to heal. In the oppressive stillness, memories surged unbidden—the countless battles they had faced side by side, forging fragile dreams amid the crumbling ashes of hope. She remembered how Fitran had slain Elbert to save Rinoa from the dark magic ritual, how he cunningly manipulated Markuez to eliminate five shadow leaders of Gaia, and how he sacrificed his own standing to support Rinoa during the Arkanum Veritas faction case. His fingers trembled as they clenched the balcony's ornate pagoda railing, as if silently begging the merciless world to rewrite their tragic fate.
"I can be with many women, but only Rinoa is the one I cannot forget. My love is 99.99% hers alone," Fitran confessed, his voice heavy with a bittersweet ache.
Rinoa — not "that student," not "a failed experiment," not "a fellow researcher." Amid the deep current of loss and regret, he spoke her name with reverence. In the tense quiet, Iris felt her heart pound with bitter jealousy and helpless sorrow. Gazing into Fitran's eyes, she saw the unmistakable reflection of a love that burned brighter than any she had known, and she wondered if the queen's affection could truly rival the profound soul bond entwined in their forbidden past.
In the distance, Iris's mind drifted back to the first time she laid eyes on Fitran. His face had radiated with the promise of hope, like the morning sun slicing through a dense, lingering fog. Together, they had dreamed of a luminous future—sharing laughter and whispered plans as if the entire world around them pulsed in perfect harmony. Yet now, every utterance of Rinoa's name sliced through Iris's heart like the sharp thorns of a rose, igniting a fierce jealousy that felt like betrayal to the fragile love she had nurtured. The heavy mantle of her role as Queen pressed down on her relentlessly, caught in a ruthless tug-of-war between the solemn duty to rule and the aching, unreciprocated desires that churned within her. Each glittering crystal gleam from the twilight sky above Gaia Palace seemed to mock her, a cold reminder of her vulnerability, intensifying the suffocating pressure that gripped her chest like iron bands.
The agony tore through the carefully constructed walls she had spent years building around her heart, shattering the delicate hopes once cradled there. As Queen, she was expected to embody unshakable strength, yet every time Fitran's voice whispered Rinoa's name, waves of pain crashed violently against the very foundations of the kingdom she had sworn to protect. The sweet, lilting voices from the royal garden melded hauntingly with the silent screams echoing inside her soul, forcing a cruel reckoning: love did not always obey the laws of loyalty. In the solitude of her chambers, Iris wrestled with a tempest inside—a fierce battle between her ambition to uphold the dynasty and an all-consuming longing, the source of her deepest torment, swirling like a dark storm on the horizon of her heart.
Having witnessed the world crumble with unrelenting force, Iris—once the stoic wife of Chaos who never shed a tear even as celestial swords split the heavens—now feels a pain far deeper and more tormenting than any she has known. Her wounds are no longer physical, but emotional, sharper and deadlier than any blade; a truth more honest yet riddled with sacrifice. Each time Rinoa's name is spoken, the pain pierces her heart like a slender, merciless needle, leaving fresh bleeding marks on a soul already scarred with wounds and regret. The magnificent palace around her, once a bastion of strength, now shrinks into mere shadows, while the cold mirrors and faded tapestries reflect the uncontrollable tears tracing rivers down her cheeks.
Jealousy.
"You say it so easily..." she whispers into the stillness, her voice a soft murmur barely louder than midnight rain. Fitran is nowhere near to hear, yet beneath her gentleness roils a fierce storm of anger and smoldering sorrow. "And you move on so quickly... for her." Every name spoken slices through her like a jagged dagger, exposing the fragile vulnerabilities she conceals behind the ironclad mask of Queen—the identity that chains her with rusted, unyielding links.
The grand walls of Gaia Palace, adorned with intricate carvings illuminated by flickering candlelight, stood as silent witnesses to her helplessness. The tears Iris kept imprisoned within were invisible to her subjects, yet inside her chest, this tumult of emotions formed a fractured kingdom—a labyrinthine maze of unease and despair that haunted her footsteps at every turn.
She was neither a child nor a naive wife. She had endured a tumultuous marriage with a mad god, weathering each storm with quiet resilience. Yet beneath her stoic exterior lay a hollow void, like a slate-gray sky pregnant with the promise of an imminent tempest. Her fate was a delicate balance, teetering between the unyielding duty to rule and the aching desire to love truly—a relentless war waging deep within her soul.
With every step along the cold marble corridors of the palace, shadows of hope and longing flickered like fragile flames caught in a mournful breeze. Time itself seemed to pause, forcing her into agonizing choices—to confront painful truths that clawed at her heart. She had turned away the proposals of twelve kings and the grand sorcerer alike, each refusal a ghostly echo of her yearning for Fitran, a heavy sorrow pressing down like the weight of a suffocating shroud. Her love for him was a fierce drumbeat, pounding relentlessly in the silent battlefield of her heart, an unending conflict beneath the surface.
Fitran... he never proposed. He never held her hand beyond a mere political greeting. Yet, it was within this silence that an unbearable trap formed—an invisible web entangling her heart in deep sorrow. Each word he uttered felt like an engraving etched onto the tombstone of time, a heavy mark of the emotional burden Iris bore day by day. Her longing and yearning twisted together like dark storm clouds stretching across a once-clear sky, casting a shadow that lingered endlessly. It was as if a weighty anchor dragged her soul down into an uncharted ocean of uncertainty. The grandeur of the Gaia Palace, once a brilliant testament to splendor and life, now stood cold and hollow, its shadowed corridors echoing the turmoil raging within the chambers of her heart.
"You love him."
Iris closed her eyes, the memories washing over her like waves against a rocky shore. It all began on the battlefield, where Fitran's smile shone like a beacon, dousing the fierce flames that had long consumed her heart. Yet now, every treasured moment was marred by a single name—Rinoa—spreading through her mind like a ruthless wildfire, consuming the fragile remnants of her past. Within the depths of her soul, a turbulent storm raged: the commanding presence of a powerful queen clashing with the vulnerable yearning of a woman waiting in love. These emotions twisted together in a relentless, tormenting dance, each step heavier than the last. For a fleeting instant, Iris was overcome by the unbearable sorrow of loving someone so close, yet separated by an invisible, unbreakable barrier.
"It's not because he is greater than me... but because he is the wound you refuse to heal."
The words hovered unspoken, suspended like a silent incantation inside her, gnawing slowly at the fabric of her being. Each time Fitran's voice called out Rinoa's name, it inflicted a fresh, searing cut upon Iris's heart—like a jagged blade slicing through tender flesh. The crimson memories never faded, staining her soul with an eternal scar. She recalled with aching clarity the first time she realized her feelings for him: beneath a blooming cherry blossom tree, petals drifting down like soft spring snow, their laughter mingling with the gentle breeze. In that fleeting moment, an unspoken connection blossomed between them, fragile yet profound.
Yet the shadow of Rinoa clung to Iris like a dense, unyielding gray mist, suffusing every corner of the Gaia Palace that should have overflowed with joy and light, leaving it cold and desolate instead.
Iris believed that Fitran loved her, yet it was not a fierce, blinding love. Instead, it was a quiet, weathered affection—like two ancient souls bound after countless battles, finding solace among the scattered ruins of shattered hopes. This love was slow and silent, never swift enough to drown the ache that tightened in her chest each time she heard Rinoa's name escape Fitran's lips. It seeped into her like a poison, a relentless venom that dissolved her confidence, making her question whether she was truly worthy of being called his beloved.
Rinoa was the wound—an open, living scar that hovered between them like a fragile blue bubble, shimmering with delicate pain, impossible to burst without shattering everything around it.
Fitran, despite his title as the strongest, was a man who rarely let wounds fester. Yet, for Iris, this invisible injury only deepened with time, pressing down on her like a cold, unyielding stone upon her chest. As queen, the weight of safeguarding the kingdom pressed heavily on her heart, each whisper and murmur of Rinoa stirring storms within her soul. It felt as if a piece of herself was slipping silently away, trapped beneath the crushing burden of duty and heartbreak. In the quiet stillness of the night, when moonlight spilled cold silver through the palace corridors, casting long shadows that danced upon the walls, she wondered if she could ever overcome the darkness that clung so persistently to her side.
"I am not the wound," Iris murmured, her voice barely rising above the heavy silence that shrouded the Gaia Palace. "I am the world he guards, the invisible fortress standing firm amidst the raging storm. Yet, he... he is the reason why he sacrifices everything." Deep within her chest, jealousy flared like a relentless blaze engulfing fragile parchment, its consuming heat corroding her spirit until it splintered into fragments. Despair wrapped around her like a suffocating fog, thick and unyielding, convincing her that she would never measure up to the shadow cast by the woman who wielded boundless power.
Suddenly, the wind shifted, carrying with it the heavy, electric scent of imminent rain. From the distant heavens came a roaring echo of raw magic, sounding like the tolling of death bells across an empty vale. The gates of reality parted with a faint, sinister whisper, fracturing the fragile peace she had so desperately clung to. Iris knew, without doubt, that Fitran had plunged into the void for Rinoa, his gaze never once turning back to reach for her hand.
Wordless, without explanation or even a fleeting glance her way, Iris was left as aimless as a withered leaf caught in an unforgiving gust. In the shadowed corner of the grand palace chamber—now hollow and colder than ever—she was consumed by an overwhelming loneliness. It was a dark, yawning void nestled deep between the gleaming marble walls, silent witnesses to her quiet, unraveling suffering.
For the first time since the Heavenly War, a silence broke the unyielding facade of Queen Gaia.
Her tears streamed down her regal cheeks, shimmering like morning dew glistening on withered leaves at dawn. Each fragile droplet carried the weight of immeasurable sorrow and the crushing burden of her role as the kingdom's steadfast protector.
These tears were more than mere drops; they were fragments of lost dreams and shattered hopes, pooling into an ocean of anguish that threatened to consume the very soul of the queen.