Synopsis

“You promised that you would consider me among your foremost candidates for marriage!”

“At the time, I did not know your true status.”

“Does being a princess change everything? How can a man speak with one mouth and yet say two different things?”

If you will not come to me, then I shall go to you.

You said it would violate propriety? To me, you are propriety itself—you are the very breath that keeps me alive.

When you smile, I smile. When you live, I can live as well.

Even if death awaits me tomorrow, I would rather follow my heart today than spend my life burdened by regret.

“You and I are people who can never look toward the same horizon.”

“You are truly cold-hearted.”

“Even if it disappoints you, there is nothing I can do. It is better this way than for my heart to open.”

He paused before continuing.

“And if such a thing were to happen—if no one but you could enter my eyes, if I stubbornly refused to look at anyone else—what would you do then?”

“Is such a thing truly possible?”

“Do not come any closer. Stop knocking upon my heart. Cast away the feelings you carry for me, and do not give me even the smallest fragment of your affection.”

A determined princess and a principled scholar stand on opposite sides of an unbridgeable divide.

She refuses to surrender her feelings, while he struggles to keep his heart locked behind duty, status, and reason.

Yet the more he pushes her away, the more dangerous his own emotions become.

For if the day ever comes when he can no longer deny his feelings, neither rank nor law may be enough to keep them apart.