✶✶✶
A pristine white building. Out front, a gaggle of young girls had gathered—chatting, squealing, and generally making a racket.
“Ugh, can you see him?”
“No! Not at all! Maybe he’s in the back today?”
Their blouses were cut low, their skirts hiked high—every trace of their “womanly charm” meticulously weaponized for one purpose and one purpose only.
“Wait! There he is!”
A shriek went up near a particular window, and the others swarmed to join her. All eyes pressed in, drawn to a single figure within. At the center of their breathless, lovestruck attention was a young, raven-haired healer.
He had only been dispatched here a few months ago, but that had been more than enough time to set off a quiet storm among the most eagle-eyed, conniving girls in his age bracket. With his cool, unreadable gaze, that low, soothing voice, and features so perfectly still they seemed chiseled from stone, he was the very picture of a romantic ideal. And the final, critical detail: the unsplit identification tag dangling from his neck.
Single. Handsome. Elite.
Day by day, the crowd at the infirmary window swelled with hopeful candidates, all dreaming of a smile, a word, or—if luck struck—a promise to accompany him to the capital one day.
A door slammed open.
“Hey! Scram, kids! This is a medical facility, not a stage for your little theatrics!” barked the infirmary director as he stormed out.
The girls immediately recoiled, their faces curling in collective disgust.
“Ew. Go harass someone your own age, creep.”
“Eek!”
“Help! We’re being assaulted!”
The man’s face turned a blotchy red. “Q-Quiet down! Damned brats—get out of here, now! I know where all of you live! Keep this up, and I’ll tell your parents exactly what you’re up to!”
“Of course, he’s a snitch.”
“Ugh, gross.”
“Why don’t you do us all a favor and just drop dead already?”
“Hey, now—that’s going too far! Adults have feelings too, you know!” the director cried.
“Guh-rossss!”
The girls dispersed, but not before making a theatrical show of their departure—huffs, eye rolls, and exaggerated groans echoing behind them as they went. They were halfway down the path from the infirmary, still making noise, when someone came walking in the opposite direction.
She had long, slender limbs that caught the light like glass. Immaculately kept platinum-blonde hair gathered neatly at the nape of her neck in a refined low twist.
She wore a midnight indigo dress that swept past her ankles, the sleeves covering her arms entirely. The fabric gleamed with understated opulence, the kind that whispered old money without ever raising its voice. A little skin was exposed, yet the pale nape of her neck, where a few loose strands had fallen, seemed somehow more intimate, more alluring than any of them had been all day.
The conversation dried up mid-sentence. A hush spread through the group like fog. All eyes turned toward her.
Her skin was porcelain-pale, unblemished. Her emerald eyes, gentle but knowing, carried the weight of someone who had already lived through more than they let on. Her cheeks were faintly rosy. Her lips were full, but not overdone.
And the way she walked—still, upright, measured down to the tips of her fingers—it wasn’t anything like the clomping, posturing way they carried themselves. It wasn’t showy. But it was undeniably elegant.
This woman didn’t try to outshine them. She simply existed and, by virtue of that, made them all feel clumsy, loud, and tragically provincial by comparison.
Without meaning to, the group parted to let her pass. Like water yielding to the moon’s pull.
She strode by without hesitation, heading straight for the infirmary. Just before she reached the door, she lifted something from beneath her collar: a slim, metallic tag that glinted in the sun.
“Hello. I’m Sophie Olzon, Sir Kurt Ozhorn’s fiancée. He should be expecting me.”
The guard didn’t even blink before opening the door. And just like that, she vanished into the pristine white halls of the infirmary without so much as a fuss.
A cascade of sighs sounded.
Then, a rustling of fabric as all gathered pulled up their blouses and unrolled their skirts.
“Oh, what a disappointment. Of course that’s the kind of girl he went with.”
“If I had her face, I’d need nothing else. The world would bend around me.”
“Didn’t peg him for shallow, but I guess men really are all the same.”
“Life’s unfair. I bet she’s coasted through life looking like that.”
One after another, the complaints spilled out, each one met with murmurs, nods, and another round of deflated sighs. Then:
“Anyway. Who’s up for something sweet? Eat the heartbreak away, am I right?
“Say less!”
And just like that, the noise returned—as though the hush had never happened—and the group wandered off in search of pastries and their next object of affection.
✦ ✦ ✦
✶✶✶
“ALLOW me,” said the infirmary head, squinting suspiciously at Sophie, “to confirm—beyond a shadow of a doubt—what it is you just said.”
“Of course,” Sophie replied pleasantly.
“You are Kurt Ozhorn’s fiancée.”
“Yes.”
“His fiancée.” He gestured to the man next to her.
“Yes.”
“The man in the iron mask, Mr. Automaton, He Who Had a Don’t Laugh Competition With a Statue and Won.”
“I…believe so, yes.”
“The man who, on his very first day here, looked me dead in the eye and said, ‘Still healing that tiny little wound? Impressive. Most people are done by now?’”
“Ah. He was terribly nervous about meeting his new superior. I do apologize for that.”
Meanwhile, just outside the director’s office, a crowd was steadily gathering. Thankfully, no critical patients were in need of care at the moment.
Inside, the director folded his hands and addressed Sophie with sudden gravity.
“Ms. Sophie, was it?”
“Yes,” she answered politely.
“If it’s your vision that’s troubling you, rest assured—we have treatments available.”
“Oh? Thank you for your concern,” Sophie said, smiling. “But I see just as well as anyone.”
The director slammed a fist onto his desk. “Argh! I don’t know what you’ve done, Kurt Ozhorn, but you’ve done something to this young woman!”
“I have,” Kurt said. “I confessed my love to her. Exactly as you advised me to, director.”
The director’s mouth hung open. “You did what I told you to?”
“To the letter.”
“The all-white suit?”
“Wore it.”
“A hundred roses, exactly?
“Exactly. That part had been harder than expected.”
Still gaping, the director turned slowly to Sophie. “And you said yes?”
“Naturally.”
“Why?”
“Because.” A flush rose to her cheeks. “The feelings were mutual.”
She and Kurt shared a tender look, then broke into quiet, happy smiles as the poor director sat sandwiched between them.
This sent a shockwave through the gathering at large.
“He smiled…”
“He can smile…”
“They’re so sweet…”
“His fiancée’s a total catch…”
“Is that…a halo? Is she an angel?”
All eyes remained fixed on the delicate young maiden in the room. They stared, reverent and stunned, as if a celestial being had descended into their midst.
The celestial being then turned to face them, stood with perfect posture, and dipped into a graceful, dignified bow.
“It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintances,” she said. Her voice, though soft, seemed to echo larger than life through the hall. “Kurt speaks very highly of all of you. Though I imagine the sentiment may not be entirely mutual.”
She lifted her head and smiled.
“For the remainder of his time here, we shall devote ourselves to improving what we can in regard to his…behavior. I offer my apologies and urge you all to look forward to the future.”
There was only silence. And a sea of blushing faces shifting uneasily.
“Well, I’ll be. It’s possible after all,” the director murmured, barely audible even in the hush.
“Kurt,” Sophie said, turning slightly.
“Yes?”
She stepped closer and rose onto her toes to whisper in his ear. He bent down instinctively to meet her.
“My father was wondering if you’d come for dinner tonight. To go over the ceremony plans.”
“All right. I’ll come by after work.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
Their eyes met.
“Shall we read in your room afterward?” he asked.
“Will that be all we do?”
“I can’t promise that.”
“Then absolutely not.”
Their voices were low, meant for no one else, but Sophie’s cheeks still pinkened, her smile gentle and full of affection.
Kurt looked at her with an almost unrecognizable expression. A softness that was suspiciously close to sensual.
A golden afternoon light, like the first breath of spring, filtered through the windows, bathing them in its gentle glow.
“Pretty…” someone whispered.
The crowd could only stare, dumbfounded, as if watching something just slightly unreal.
“I mean, I… Well. I’ll be damned,” the director murmured, his voice lost somewhere in the golden haze as he nodded solemnly to himself, adrift in some private, heroic epiphany.