She offered her arm, curious.
Viktor took it gently, fingers brushing her skin as he rolled the fabric close.
“A sailor always keeps his clothes tight,” he murmured, eyes fixed on the fold. “One loose sleeve can catch a line and drag a man straight overboard.”
Her smile faltered, curiosity turning inward.
“Do you miss it?”
He glanced up, caught by her gaze.
“Miss what?”
“You weren’t always a soldier,” she said softly.
His thumb traced the grain of the cuff as if it were a rope he once knew how to hold. For a moment he didn’t answer—the weight of memory pressing hard against his ribs.
“It’s been a long time since I wore the boots of a dockhand,” he said at last, voice rough. “I don’t think I know that man anymore.”
Her eyes searched his.
“He’s still there,” she whispered, soft as rain. “Under the scars. Under the fire. Not lost—only waiting.”
The words cut deeper than he expected, loosening something he’d fought to keep bound. His hand lingered against her wrist, and he forced himself to draw a breath.
“Are you afraid?” he asked quietly. “Of what you’re about to become? Your father is right now—”
“I am,” she admitted, voice breaking with the weight of it.
“I had accepted my place. I knew what I was… what I wasn’t. All I know of a crown, I’ve only stolen from stories of my mother.”
“You’ve more than stories,” Viktor said, leaning closer, the distance between them vanishing with each word. “Already five hundred men wait for your command. They look to you as if you’ve been wearing that crown all your life.”
Her lips parted—whether to protest or believe, he couldn’t tell.
Silence swelled between them, charged, fragile, as if they were both waiting to see who would cross it first.
Finally, she whispered, “We can’t stop this, can we?”
His gaze held hers, steady, unbending.
“No more than winter can stop the sea.”
A cool draft slipped over her shoulders, through her hair—a breath of wind that felt almost like snowmelt running down her spine. His Endowed power answered him, and she shivered, eyes widening, caught between fear and wonder.
He leaned in, close enough that his breath tangled with hers.
“Amerei,” he murmured, his voice frayed with restraint. “You know there isn’t a drop of noble blood in my veins.”
She lifted her chin, closing the space between them.
“I don’t care.”
The words leapt fierce and certain, as if they had been waiting in her chest all her life.
He cupped her face, holding her there as his lips brushed over hers—barely, almost not at all—when the door creaked open.
Viktor’s hand shot up over Amerei’s head, fingers closing around the pack on the shelf as though that had been his purpose all along. But his body was still angled toward hers, his breath still mingled with hers, and the silence between them throbbed with everything that hadn’t been spoken.
