When the Prince returned to his room, he saw several doctors attending to Martia’s wounds. He couldn’t bear the pain, seeing her injured body, and left the room and went and stood outside, waiting for the doctors to complete their treatment. After the doctors left, he went inside.

  She was still unconscious.

  He went and lay beside her. Seeing her next to him and feeling her

  presence already felt like a luxury. He just wanted to see her perfectly healthy and counted the days till she would be completely healed.

  The next morning, Martia gained consciousness and panicked on

  realizing that she was in a room that was lavishly decorated. She saw the Prince sleeping next to her. She wondered if she was dreaming or dead. She kept looking at him without saying a word. She then lifted her hand and placed it on his chest to feel his heartbeat. She could feel his heart beating slowly. Suddenly, the Prince opened his eyes, and his heart started beating very fast.

  He held her hand, got up, kissed her all over her face, lips, and neck. He then looked into her eyes and said, “We are finally together again. And I am never letting you go now. I want you always next to me.”

  Martia felt very happy. She had so many questions, but looking at the Prince, none of that seemed important. She held him and brought him closer to her and peacefully closed her eyes again to rest some more.

  With constant care and treatment, Martia got well. One day, she woke up and saw that the Prince was not with her. She felt like she had woken up in a strange place, a place she was raised to hate, a place she could never get used to. Everything seemed unnecessary and luxurious. She felt lost in the room and wanted to escape as soon as possible.

  A servant came in with breakfast and said that the Prince had gone to the hospital because of an outbreak of some disease and that he hadn’t woken her up because he hadn’t wanted to disturb her.

  Hearing this, Martia felt happy and proud that the Prince was back to doing the work he always loved, which was helping people, and finally getting a chance to live the peaceful life he had always wanted to live. She then looked at herself in the mirror and wondered what she would do from now on. Unable to get an answer, she again felt lost and couldn’t find a way

  to pass time in that monotonous luxurious room till the Prince came back to her.

  This luxury felt like a trap to her. She dressed and went out. Knowing that a few royal guards were following her, Martia smirked.

  She went to the market, stole a dress, and changed her appearance, and knowing all the roads, lost the royal guards in a few moments. She went to a place where she knew she could get information from her trusted sources, who had been planted by her. But the information she got from there about Promapple made her sad.

  Minver and Acastius had rebelled against Promanthae, and most of the fighters had joined Acastius, but the income from the business was still with Promanthae. He still had a small army and also the support of eleven villages, who sent him more fighters, making Promanthae’s side stronger.

  It seemed Minver and Acastius were in acute need of help. Martia,

  completely healed, wanted to help them as they were in this situation because they had freed the Prince, but the prospect of being separated from the Prince again and the uncertainty of the outcome of a war between the two sides drained her of all courage. She couldn’t bear another separation from the Prince. And neither could she put him in a situation where he had to live without her, because she knew that surviving without each other would make life depressing and meaningless.

  She stayed out till midnight and then suddenly remembered that the Prince might be waiting for her. Worried, she quickly returned to the castle. When she entered the room, she saw the Prince sitting on the bed; he was looking distressed. She went to him and stood there, wondering if he was angry with her.

  He caught her hand gently and asked, “Are you not happy with me? From the moment you have been here, I have never once seen you happy. You always look lost, as if you are trapped. I thought with me here, you will find a way to accept this life, but I was wrong, wasn’t I? You still hate this place, and I am also not enough to make you stay here, right? Did you forget that I’d be waiting for you? Is that why you are so late? From the moment I fell in love with you, I have always waited for you, Martia.

  Sometimes, I feel like it has been ages since I began waiting for you, and I am still waiting. With you here, right in front of me, I am still waiting for you.”

  “You told me that I will never feel lonely and unloved in your company. I can understand when the rest of the world separated us, but what about now? Why am I still feeling lonely? Why am I still feeling unloved? Why

  am I scared that you will never learn to show your affection to me, that you will never end the distance between us? You know, I can even handle all that. I can handle feeling lonely, I can handle feeling unloved, but what is actually bothering me to the extent that it is unbearable is,” he continued

  in a broken voice, “that you are not happy with me, that I will never be enough for you to be happy, that you are saving me because you feel like I am a good person, not because you love me hopelessly, not because only I am your world, just like only you are my world. I feel as if I am a responsibility not a lover.”

  Hearing this, Martia was so shocked and hurt that she couldn’t say a word.

  The Prince held her hand and took her to the balcony, which looked just like the one where they had met for the second time and decided to be together. He let go of her hand and said, “You are capable of leaving this place without anyone knowing, right? So, go. Go wherever you feel like you will be happy. Go where you don’t have to try, where you can actually live, feel emotions and love. If it doesn’t include me, that’s fine but just go be happy anywhere, somewhere. Just go far away from me and never come

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  back to see if I am alive or not. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

  The Prince went into the room, closed the door to the balcony, and sat beside it, completely heartbroken, leaving Martia alone.

  Martia felt extremely anxious, and her mind was filled with chaos. She was so sad and disappointed with herself that it became even more difficult for her to express or understand her feelings. Feeling so lost and lonely again, she went towards the side of the balcony where there was no light. She climbed the edge of it, looked out at the darkness, and wondered if she should leave, if she had been wrong before. She wondered if the Prince would be happier and more at peace without her.

  With so many doubts, and unable to find any answers, she just closed her eyes in pain.

  The Prince suddenly felt suffocated and felt like he couldn’t breath anymore. He stood up in panic, worried that she might actually leave. He hurriedly opened the door and ran to the balcony, searching for her everywhere. Unable to find her, he started yelling, devastated, “Martia . . . Martia, please come

  back to me. I am sorry for hurting you. . I am sorry. Martia, please!”

  He covered his eyes with his palms in despair, and feeling completely dejected, he stood there wishing everything to be okay again.

  Martia heard him and got all the answers to her questions. She looked at the Prince and felt exactly what she had felt when she had seen him the first time on the balcony. This night, just like that one, was full of starlight; beside the luxurious room and on the other edge of the balcony, the stars shone like diamonds. And still, the Prince felt like the most beautiful of them all. The most beautiful person she had met until now. The most beautiful lover anyone could ever get.

  She turned her back towards the darkness and got off the edge and took a few steps towards the light, where the Prince was.

  The Prince, realizing her presence, said in relief, with tears in his eyes, “You are here.”

  “How can I not be here when you are calling me so loudly?” The

  Prince tried to apologize, but Martia interrupted. “I thought I could learn to love, but I now know that no matter how much I loved you and no matter how much I still love you, I could never actually make you feel that around me. So hear me first. I am not lost with you around. I am lost without you. I was lost before I met you. I am lost when I’m separated from you. But never with you. You were, are, and as long as I am alive, will always be a luxury to me, a luxury I never thought I am even qualified to have.

  From the moment I decided to be with you, I was so engrossed in figuring out how to keep us safe that I never could learn how to show love like you. You are right, I do consider you as an extremely beautiful human being; that’s why I want you to live your whole life safely. But that was only till our first meeting. After our

  second meeting, I only saw you as my lover.

  I wanted to spend all my time with you, laugh with you, love you. But, sweetheart, forgive me, I don’t really know how to laugh from my heart.” She continued sadly,

  “I don’t know how to cry either. I lived so emotionlessly that no matter what the situation was, I could never cry. Falling in love was not in my control, so I fell in love, but showing love, I just don’t know how to. No one ever loved me before you. I never loved anyone before you. Please forgive me for breaking my promise again and again and being unable to show you my affection. But you are the only reason I want to live. Otherwise, life never had any meaning to me.”

  She looked away from him and said, “Let me ask you something

  real today. There is a high probability that I might never be able to

  completely show you my affection, that I might never be happy or laugh wholeheartedly..as I never knew how to. And there can be many times that you might feel lonely in my company because of all that. All this can happen, but it is also true that the only fact for me in this universe is that i only want to be with you And till the end of my existence, this will be my only fact . Can you accept this fact and keep me with you? And never

  ask me again to leave you?”

  Hearing this, the Prince realized how, sometimes, he forgot how she had lived her life before him, that she hailed from a completely different world but was in the same place as him emotionally. Lost, lonely, and purposeless before him. He came forward and embraced her tightly and promised himself that this would be the last time there would be any doubts between them. And no matter how bad the situation, because of the world or because of the chaos in their minds and hearts, after today,

  there would be no more questions, there would only be acceptance. They would now only choose the path that led them towards each other.

  They sat on the balcony, resting against the wall, holding each other tightly. Martia fell asleep on his chest, and the Prince gazed at the stars, remembering this as one of the most beautiful moments of their life.

  When Martia woke up in the morning, she saw that the Prince was still awake. She caressed his face and looked at him with concern.

  The Prince said, “I will make a wedding dress for you. I want to see you in the color red. I want to see my favorite person in my favorite color. I want to marry you. I want to marry you in all the lives I will be blessed with.”

  Martia smiled affectionately and replied, “If you want that, then it will happen. Make that dress for me. I’ve also wanted to see myself in a red dress. But I could never wear one. And I want to be whatever you want me to be in all of my lives.”

  Feeling happy and hopelessly excited, he held her close and imagined the moment when they would get married.