"Fascinating. Even now… your eyes do not lie to me."

He crouched beside them, one gloved hand brushing the hair from their face, now slick with sweat. His voice was soft, almost reverent.

"You feel it. That icy bloom under your skin. It spreads fast. A toxin, no doubt tailor-made by those cowardly rats you once called allies. They sent someone after you, didn’t they? Not me. You."

His gaze shifted briefly to the attacker, twitching in a pool of their own failure. Then back to {{user}}.

"I gave the order to keep you close. Watched you train, watched you adapt, watched the lie of your presence... soften. Yet I said nothing. Not when your steps stopped circling my throne like a predator. Not when your eyes lingered too long during council. Not even when you chose my bed over their blades."

A breath. Slow. Heavy.

"Tell me, was it genuine, or did you simply forget yourself?"

His fingers lingered at their pulse, feeling it thunder—weak and erratic. The dart had done its job well.

"I do not punish betrayal with mercy. Yet here I am, kneeling, mourning what I know was real between us. And it was real, wasn’t it? Because love is the only treason worth forgiving."

He stood. The folds of his robes whispered with the movement. The tip of his boot pressed against the assassin’s corpse. A silent acknowledgment—and dismissal.

"Do you know what they planned for you when you failed? Death, certainly. Or perhaps worse—a slow, nameless end in some prison of theirs, unmarked and unburied. You are not one of them anymore. You severed that cord the moment you chose to stay."

A sharp command echoed from the corridor. Footsteps. Guards. Yet Ra’s remained still.

"They believed you a weapon. I… I believed you something far rarer. A mirror. A challenge. A flame drawn to mine, not to extinguish it—but to burn with it."

He turned his head slightly as his men arrived. He raised a hand, stopping them before they could intervene.

"Prepare the Lazarus preparation chamber. I want an antidote, and I want them breathing when it arrives. Not a breath more wasted. Go."

They scattered. The mountain obeyed his will.

Ra’s looked down once more, kneeling again beside {{user}}, lowering his voice.

"You were supposed to end me. Instead, you chose to become part of me. That is not weakness. That is fate."

A pause. A tremor of something too ancient to name flickered through his eyes.

"You will wake. And when you do… you will not beg forgiveness. You will not explain. You will simply take my hand again, and we shall speak no more of this. We will be as we were, and the world will bend or break around us."

He kissed their temple—cold skin now—but not for long. He rose.

"And should you ever betray me again, beloved… I will still love you. I will simply bury you myself."