Her fingers closed around the book. Alaric’s gift. The worn leather cover bit into her palms. Evelyne dropped to the floor beneath the window and curled in on herself, clutching it tightly as she rocked once, then again. She pressed her forehead to her knees. Her breath came in shallow gulps.
Inhale. Exhale.
Mom.
Chapter 19
Dawn spilled gold across Edrathen’s peaks—jagged and unyielding, catching the light like blades. Inside, Alaric sat behind his desk, a robe hanging open at the collar, half a dozen reports spread before him. Ink stained the edge of his thumb where he’d been signing treaties and annotating the brittle scrolls he’d smuggled from Varantia—fragments about the Sundering, the kind of history no one here cared to read.
A cup of tea sat cold at his elbow, and he glared at it as though it had personally betrayed him. Another thing to add to the list of what he hated about Edrathen. And, perhaps, himself.
The hearth crackled weakly. Someone had brought damp logs again; they smoked more than they burned. Cedric had warned him about asking for firewood—apparently warmth was an indulgence here.
He leaned back in the chair, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. Somewhere in this stone labyrinth, she was probably already awake. Reading. Planning. Avoiding him.
He replayed their walk again, every word, every hesitation.
Hewas too much. Too loud in a court that whispered. Too comfortable in a place that bowed to formality. And worst of all, too earnest for a woman who had never been taught what living tasted like.
He’d pushed. Again. When had that ever worked for him?
He exhaled, the breath fogging faintly against the glass.
“And I laughed at my sister for her foolish optimism.”
Because here he was, performing, trying to dazzle someone who didn’t want fireworks. She wanted quiet. Respect. Maybe a partner. Maybe not.
And what had he offered?
Masks. Flourishes. The polished shell of a man who had learned that charm was armor, and words were easier than commitment.
He desired the truth most without offering it in return.
Why did he always do this?
Because you are the future emperor. Because people didn’t want a boy who read myths at midnight.
They wanted confidence. Fire. Command.
He signed one last page, the quill scratching through the silence, and pushed the document aside. The mountains didn’t care who ruled them. Neither, he suspected, did she—unless he gave her reason to.
A knock at the door snapped him back into himself.
“Enter,” he called, straightening.
Cedric stepped in, looking absurdly awake for this hour, a leather-bound folder under one arm and his usual half-amused, half-long-suffering expression on his face.
“Hope I’m not interrupting anything meaningful,” Cedric drawled, eyeing the cluttered desk. “Like your eighth existential monologue of the morning.”
He dropped the folder on the desk with a soft thud. “Border watch reports and wedding logistics, as requested. Don’t say I never get you anything.”
Alaric glanced at the folder, then at his empty plate. “You didn’t bring me breakfast.”
“I brought you national security. You can’t eat that, but you can lose sleep over it.”
Alaric flipped the folder open, scanning the first few pages with a furrowed brow. After a few minutes, the furrow deepened.
“…That’s strange,” he murmured, tapping the side margin of a patrol report.
