“Ah. And I suppose that excludes your sister now?”
“Well,” Thalen hedged, “you don’t sweat or fall over dramatically when I hit you with a stick.”
Alaric made a show of rubbing his ribs. “A direct hit, to be fair. I may never recover.”
“You’ve been here a week and already corrupted my brother,” Evelyne murmured.
Alaric raised a brow, amused. “Should I not make a good impression on the family I’m about to marry into?”
“Making an impression is easy,” she said. “Making it last is the hard part.”
Their eyes locked. Briefly. Sharply.
Her fingers tightened on the fan’s edge. Cedric drifted toward the barracks, Vesena toward the water basin with Thalen in tow. In a breath, the yard belonged only to her and Alaric.
Evelyne remained by the fence, arms lightly folded. Alaric was still catching his breath; his body turned halfway toward her.
“How are you feeling today?”
She glanced at him sidelong. “Fine.”
He gave her the kind of look that said, without words,try again.
Her brows furrowed. “Is this concern, curiosity, or an attempt at seduction?”
He smiled faintly. “Why choose?”
She straightened. “If you’re trying to ask whether anything strange has happened recently, just ask it plainly. I don’t have patience for riddles today.”
“Alright,” Alaric regarded her for a moment longer. “Have you noticed anything… unusual? Feelings. Patterns that don’t fit.”
A cold thread slipped down her spine.
She shifted her weight slightly, the fan pressing tighter against her palm.
“You mean beyond the slow collapse of my trust in half the court?” she remarked lightly.
Alaric didn’t laugh. “Yes.”
“Is this about my dream?”
Alaric held her gaze. “Partly.”
“And the other part?”
“I’m worried.”
Evelyne said nothing for a moment. He always asked the strangest things. And this time, she wasn’t sure if it was about her or about something else he was chasing.
“You know,” Alaric began carefully, “that most people in Aeltheris don’t dream at all. Not anymore.”
Evelyne exhaled slowly. “What are you suggesting?”
“Nothing,” he replied. “Only that perhaps what’s happening isn’t random.”
Evelyne’s breath left her in a slow, measured, and cold stream. “I’m aware that dreams are wrong,” she said. “Unnatural.”
His eyes didn’t waver. “No. Not unnatural. Unwanted. There’s a difference.”
