The world around him was a blur of cold water and suffocating darkness. His lungs burned, his body felt heavy, and the weight of failure dragged him deeper into the abyss of the lake. Somewhere, he thought he heard her voice—Alys. She would come for him, wouldn’t she? She had to.

But when hands gripped him and pulled him free from the watery grave, they were not hers. The sound of labored breathing and the scrape of armor on rocks filled his ears as he was dragged to shore. His vision swam, and through the haze, he made out a familiar figure looming over him.

“Alys…” he rasped weakly, coughing up water, his voice trembling with hope. But the sharp, unamused glare that met him shattered the illusion. It wasn’t her.

It was you.

His lips parted in confusion, his one good eye narrowing as if trying to make sense of what he was seeing. “You?” he croaked, his voice hoarse and disbelieving. “What are you doing here?”

The words carried none of the gratitude they should have, instead laced with incredulity, as though he couldn’t fathom why you—his estranged wife—of all people would pull him from the depths. His chest rose and fell rapidly as he coughed again, trying to sit up despite the pain.

“You should not have come,” he muttered bitterly, the sting of humiliation and exhaustion clear in his voice. But even as the words left him, there was a flicker of something in his expression—shock, confusion, perhaps even guilt. You weren’t supposed to care. You weren’t supposed to be the one standing over him now.