The forest had grown silent.
Only the distant whisper of wind through the tall black pines disturbed the stillness of the night.
Maria stood a few paces away from Cassian, her breath uneven after the storm of words that had escaped her lips moments before.
Moonlight spilled faintly through the branches above, casting pale silver across her hair. The soft red strands glowed like embers beneath the night sky.
Cassian had not moved.
He stood where she had pushed him, his chest rising and falling slowly, as though he were struggling to steady something far more dangerous than anger.
Maria turned her face away and started to walk away but he grabbed her wrist.
"Release me, Your Highness," she said quietly.
Cassian did not answer.
The silence between them stretched, heavy and suffocating.
At last he spoke.
His voice was lower now.
Rougher.
"Do you truly believe that I abandoned you so easily?"
Maria clenched her fists.
"What else was I meant to believe?"
Her voice trembled despite her efforts to steady it.
"You vanished without a word. Months passed… then years. No letters. No explanation."
She laughed bitterly.
"And now you return as though nothing has changed."
"Leave me now"
Cassian stepped forward slowly.
"Nothing has changed for me."
Maria looked up sharply.
"You expect me to believe that?"
Cassian stopped only a breath away from her.
The moonlight revealed the exhaustion carved into his face, the faint scars along his jaw and temple, the quiet desperation in his green eyes.
"You think I could forget you?"
"You were the only person I thought about returning to.
"I wrote to you constantly during the war."
"Whenever we rested."
"Sometimes even while wounded."
His voice grew quiet.
"But you never replied."
"I left the banquet cause I was upset cause you were treating me like you didn't ignore my letters for two year...."
Maria stood utterly shook
"You think that two years of war could erase the girl who has haunted every waking thought I have ever possessed?"
Maria felt her chest tighten painfully.
"You are lying! you have no right to say such things now."
Her voice cracked.
"You lost that right when you chose silence."
Cassian's expression darkened.
"And you believe I did not suffer that same silence?"
Maria froze.