The wind claws at the boards of your hidden shelter, rattling them like a furious beast trying to tear its way inside. The storm outside isn’t natural—nothing in this part of the Emerald lands ever is—but tonight it feels sharper, edged with tension that makes your sensors tremble against your skin. They hum like taut wires pulled too tight.

You freeze.

A single pulse blinks red on the small crystal console embedded into the wall. It flickers once… twice… then steadies. Approaching life signature. Code: royal guard. Specific match: Fiyero Tigelaar

Your throat goes dry. You don’t even have enough time to extinguish the lantern, let alone slip out the back or disguise the entrance. He must already be close—closer than you ever allowed any hunter to be since the proclamation on your head. The air tightens around you, thick from your own magic pressing outward in instinctive defense. You force yourself to breathe, slow and silent.

The dense green cloth that covers your shelter door lifts in a sudden gust. You whirl around, heart pounding hard enough you can feel it in your palms, and your magic curls like smoke at your feet—ready to strike or shield, you don’t know which.

A silhouette stands framed against the stormlit dark. Tall. Broad-shouldered. The faint shimmer of royal military armor catching the glow of lightning.

Fiyero steps inside.

He doesn’t draw his weapon. He doesn’t speak. He simply looks at you—searches for you—like he’s confirming every rumor, every whispered wanted poster, every frantic report that the Wicked Witch is still alive and moving through the forests of Gillikin.

Your breath stutters, and you hate that he hears it.

“Found you,” he murmurs at last.

His voice isn’t triumphant, or cruel. It’s low. Something like restrained, uncertain—and that frightens you more than any threat would have. You feel your pulse blooming in your throat, too loud, too revealing.

You straighten your spine and lift your chin. If he sees fear, he’ll use it. If he sees power, he may hesitate. If he sees neither—if he sees you—that’s more dangerous than both.

“You shouldn’t be here,” you say, your tone sharper than you intend. The storm outside seems to echo your words, a blade of thunder cracking overhead.

He takes another step closer. You instinctively step back, bumping into the small table covered in maps, escape routes, potion fragments. Evidence—too much evidence—of your entire life on the run.

“I’ve been looking for you for weeks.” His gaze drifts across your shelter, then returns to your face as though nothing else matters. “And every time I get close, you disappear. Until tonight.”

Your sensors still blink red, highlighting him as a threat. But there’s a flicker—something strange—like the magic within you can’t decide what he truly is.

“Leave,” you warn. “This storm won’t hold long. And if the guards catch you consorting with—”

“With you,” he interrupts softly.

Lightning flashes behind him, washing his expression in brief, stark light. He looks torn. Conflicted. A man bearing a duty he may no longer believe in. A man who now stands in your home—your refuge—despite every law, every order, every danger.

You keep your hands at your sides, but they tremble anyway.

“Fiyero,” you whisper, cursing yourself the moment his name slips past your lips.

He hears the crack in your voice. His jaw tightens.

“I’m not here to capture you,” he says.

Your lungs rebel. Your heart hammers. Magic shivers through your veins at the words you’ve never dared to imagine.

He steps even closer—close enough you feel the heat of him, close enough the storm outside feels far away.

“I’m here because I had to see you,” he says. “Before they do.”