He turned his attention back to his own mother and answered, pressing every bit of his will into the words and leaning into the strength, the certainty, that now stretched warm and definitive through his body—sparked into life by her. The girl with wild hair, bare feet, and a poem-draped heart.

“It’s Elisabeth or no one.”

Sophie’s hands clenched. Franz knew she was angrier than she was letting on.

“I’ll speak with her,” she finally said, turning toward the door.

Franz followed.

When they reached Elisabeth’s room, a servant announced them, and Elisabeth rose from where she’d been sitting on the floor, skirt pooled around her like water. Franz’s anxious heart calmed at the sight of her. He had to hold himself back from wrapping his arms around her and pressing her warmth, her brightness, to his chest.

Ludovika stepped to her first and Elisabeth straightened, anxiety flitting across her features in a way that made Franz want to protect her. “Tell your aunt this is all a big misunderstanding, Sisi. Tell her. Right now.”

Sophie raised a hand. “Enough, Sister. I want to hear from Elisabeth herself.” She stepped forward, searching Elisabeth’s face. “Do you want to be Habsburg’s empress?”

There was a long pause. Too long, in fact, and Franz’s heart crept into his throat. After all this, he just needed her to say yes. Say yes, Elisabeth.

“Yes, I do.”

Franz hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath, but now it came out in a rush. Elisabeth caught his eyes, and he held her gaze, held it like the precious thing it was. He could feel a smile overtaking his face.

She hadn’t had time to say yes before, and it was stunning how that one word unknotted every knot in his soul, every uncertainty. That yes could move mountains, could face the darkness lapping at the gates of Habsburg. To think—he’d almost let a nightmare steal that certainty from him.

Sophie pursed her lips, her face severe. “And you know what it means to be empress? You know that you are committing not only to a marriage but also an empire?”

Elisabeth held his mother’s gaze and nodded. “Yes.”

“And you are willing to do the work it will take to make you a suitable ruler?”

“Yes.”

His mother didn’t ask any more questions, just stared at Sisi, but Franz knew that didn’t mean she supported his choice. She was the type to bide her time. “The world,” she’d once told him, “won’t bend for you if you shout at it and cry. But it will bend if you wait long enough to find its weaknesses.”

For now, his mother stepped aside and told her sister they should give the couple a moment alone. Without speaking, the older women turned and left the room.