The Engagement He Refused

Synopsis

Everyone in Caelestara City knew I was devoted to Triston Schwartz. In the spring of the third regnal year, I stood beneath the locust tree outside the Schwartz family, watching the vermilion gates slowly close in front of me. Inside those gates was Triston's departing figure—clad in a shirt, crown neatly set, his steps unhurried. He did not once look back. In my arms, I held a pouch I had embroidered through the night. Every stitch was tight, precise, and deliberate. Twin flowers bloomed across its surface. My mother once told me that when a young woman gave a man a sachet like this, she was staking her entire life on him. But I never got the chance to give it to him because in front of the entire city of Caelestara, Triston was on his knees outside the Crown Gate, pleading with the sovereign to grant him leave to renounce the secular world and take holy orders. He said his earthly ties were severed, and he wished only for monastic devotion—to spend the rest of his life in spiritual seclusion. The city erupted in shock. Everyone knew whose marriage proposal he had rejected—the Talley family's. And the one who should have married him was me, the legitimate daughter of the Vanessa Talley.