The carriage rocked gently along the winding dirt road, its wheels crunching softly over loose gravel. Outside the window, the horizon stretched endlessly, dotted with wildflower fields and distant hills bathed in soft moonlight. The air smelled faintly of pine and damp earth, a refreshing change from Inferna’s stone and smoke.

  Roland sat quietly by the window, cheek resting against his knuckles, his gaze unfocused as the scenery blurred past. Every so often, a farmhouse drifted into view — warm candlelight glowing faintly behind wooden shutters — before vanishing behind rolling fields.

  It was so peaceful out here.

  And yet… his chest still felt heavy.

  Flora, seated across from him, noticed the silence. Her hands rested neatly on her lap, her soft brown cloak draped over her shoulders, hiding the faint bruises along her wrist. Leon sat beside her, eyes half-lidded as if dozing, though Roland knew better. Leon never slept when he was supposed to.

  For a while, Flora said nothing. Then, as the carriage rounded a bend and the distant forests came into view, she smiled faintly.

  “You know,” she said softly, breaking the quiet, “I can’t wait to introduce you to my daughter, Roland. She’s never met a prince before.”

  Roland’s gaze flicked briefly toward her but didn’t linger. He didn’t reply.

  Flora tilted her head, amused by his silence. “You’d like her,” she added warmly. “She’s about your age… though far better behaved, I imagine.”

  That earned her the smallest twitch of his lips, but still, no words. His thoughts were elsewhere — on the choices he’d made, the weight of them still pressing quietly against his chest.

  He turned back to the window, letting the moonlit fields wash over him.

  Later that night, they stopped to make camp near a clearing by the roadside. Leon built the fire with practiced ease, his movements precise, efficient — a soldier’s rhythm. Sparks rose and drifted into the cold night air before fading into the dark.

  Roland sat near the flames, legs crossed, staring into the embers. Shadows danced faintly across his face, his expression unreadable, lost somewhere between thought and memory.

  Flora settled beside him with her cloak wrapped loosely around her shoulders. She watched him quietly for a moment before speaking, her voice soft but deliberate.

  “You’ve been quiet all day, my prince,” she said gently. “Still thinking about everything that happened?”

  Roland hesitated, then shook his head. “…Not exactly.”

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “Mm.” Flora poked at the fire with a stick, sending a small cascade of sparks upward. “Then I suppose you’re hiding bigger thoughts behind that pout of yours.”

  He glanced at her briefly, frowning faintly. “…It’s not a pout.”

  “That’s what people who pout always say.”

  That earned a soft huff from him — the closest thing to laughter she’d managed to coax out of him since they left Inferna.

  Leon, seated opposite them with his back to a log, cracked one eye open at the exchange but said nothing, choosing instead to let the fire fill the silence.

  Roland’s gaze wandered beyond the campfire, drawn to a faint, silvery movement just beyond the clearing. There, perched delicately on the branch of a small, flowering tree, rested a dream butterfly.

  Its translucent wings shimmered faintly under the moonlight, carrying an ethereal glow — soft, otherworldly, almost fragile.

  Roland stared at it, entranced, as it took flight. Slowly, gently, it drifted upward, weaving lazily on the night breeze until it aligned perfectly with the shattered moon above.

  Fractured. Glimmering. Beautiful despite its scars.

  Something in his chest tightened. And then the memory came, unbidden and sharp, as though his heart had been waiting for this moment to remember.

  “What is your dream?” Her voice — soft, steady, and certain — echoed within him as clearly as if she were seated beside him now.

  He remembered her small hand clasping his in that sterile white room. The faint hum of machines. The muffled laughter of children somewhere beyond those walls.

  He remembered her blind, milky eyes that somehow still looked right through him.

  “Even if I can’t see the world,” she had said softly, “I want to feel it. To know it’s out there. Through you.”

  Back then, he hadn’t known how to answer her. Back then, he thought dreams were for children who could run without coughing, laugh without breaking, fall without shattering like glass.

  He remembered her smile — warm, fragile, untouchable.

  And he remembered the promise.

  “Promise me you’ll go,” she had whispered. “Promise you’ll see the world for me.”

  And he had said yes.

  Roland exhaled slowly, his gaze still locked on the fractured moon as the dream butterfly vanished into the night. His hand lifted slightly, palm open as though trying to hold both within his reach — the butterfly, the moon, the world.

  “…Flora,” he said at last, voice low, careful. “I… I have a dream.” He hesitated, adding almost shyly, “…well… kinda.”

  Flora looked at him curiously. “Kinda? What kind of dream is kinda, my prince?”

  Roland stayed silent for a moment, watching the embers breathe against the night. Then, softly:

  “…Flora, if I told you I have memories of another life… would you believe me?”

  Flora blinked but didn’t interrupt, letting him continue.

  “In that life, there was a girl.” His voice softened, distant but steady. “I can’t remember her name… but I remember her voice. Her smile. Her dream.”

  Flora folded her hands in her lap, her gaze steady on him.

  “I promised her I’d go on a legendary adventure,” Roland whispered, his throat tightening slightly. “To see the world she couldn’t. To live it, for her.”

  Flora said nothing for a long while, her expression unreadable in the firelight. She followed his gaze to the fractured moon, her face half-lit by its glow.

  Finally, she spoke — softly, carefully, like someone choosing her words with intent.

  “The night is still young, my prince,” she said gently. “But you… are younger.”

  Her hand brushed ash from her cloak as she added, quieter still:

  “Tomorrow, think about what that dream means to you. Not just for her.”

  Roland turned his head slightly, surprised by the weight behind her voice — but Flora didn’t meet his eyes. Her gaze stayed fixed on the shattered moon, silent as if lost in her own thoughts.

  The fire cracked softly between them, its warmth fleeting against the chill of the night.

  And Roland, for the first time in weeks, felt something quiet, fragile, and strange.

  Hope.