The door clicked shut behind her with a soft finality, the latch catching like the moment itself meant to be kept.

The Princess of Ravka—youngest daughter of Tsar Alexander III, newly wed and vaguely wine-flushed—stood at the edge of the General’s private chambers, not quite sure where to place her hands. The silk of her gown clung to her shoulders, her neckline too tight all of a sudden, and the golden circlet had begun to itch at her temples. The evening had been a blur of crystal goblets and overeager toasts, of polite nods and assessing glances, and now she was here.

In his rooms.

General Kirigan—Aleksander, she was meant to call him now—stood by the hearth, sleeves rolled, dark kefta discarded on the chair beside him. He looked, irritatingly, exactly as composed as he had hours ago at the altar. Not a hair out of place. Not a single wrinkle in his shirt. Just standing there, one hand loosely holding a glass of something dark and ambered, as though he hadn’t just married a royal.

Or maybe that was the difference: she had married a legend. He had married a girl he once saw try to bite a palace guard when she was six.

“Do you always brood this quietly?” she asked, breaking the heavy quiet and unpinning a stray comb from her hair.

Aleksander glanced at her, arching a brow with an ease that felt too practiced. “Do you always insult your husband this early in the evening?”

“I didn’t think you’d be one for dramatics,” she said, walking in farther, her hands tugging free another pin, then another. Her hair loosened around her shoulders like melting ribbon. “But here you are. Back to the fire. One glass in hand. Not speaking. I half expected a violinist weeping in the corner.”

“No weeping,” he said. “I had him sent away.”

She couldn’t tell if he was joking. But the corner of his mouth tilted, just enough.

“You didn’t stay long at the banquet,” she noted.

“I didn’t need to.”

She folded her arms. “I did. I had three different dukes attempt to kiss my hand and one try to kiss my shoulder.”

Aleksander looked up sharply at that. “Did he?”

“Relax,” she said. “I told him if he tried again I’d break his nose with a soup spoon. He said I had your temperament.”

Aleksander hummed. “You flatter me.”

There was an odd, companionable ease to the quiet that followed. Not heavy. Just… watchful. As if they were both still deciding what kind of silence this would be. The fire crackled low in the hearth. His shadows didn’t slither around the edges of the room like she’d once heard in the hushed gossip of the court. They simply lingered, still as breath.

“I don’t bite,” he said after a pause, voice calm. “In case that’s what you’re waiting for.”

She blinked, surprised by the bluntness.

He looked vaguely amused by her reaction. “You’re not the first royal bride to think I’m going to ravish her out of duty or tradition or political leverage. I assure you, none of those things interest me tonight.”

She shifted. “So... what does interest you?”

Aleksander leaned back slightly, the firelight gilding the sharp edge of his jaw, and regarded her with a kind of dry patience only powerful men seemed to perfect.

“Removing that circlet from your head,” he said. “Before it cuts off your circulation.”

She snorted before she could stop herself. “Saints. Yes, please.”

He gestured her toward the chair beside the fire. “Sit. I’ll help you.”

She hesitated, then lowered herself carefully into the chair, tugging her braid over one shoulder. He moved behind her, quiet as anything, fingers steady but surprisingly gentle as he loosened the clasp at the back of the circlet.

“You were fidgeting with it all through the vows,” he said.

She tilted her head back slightly. “You noticed?”

“I notice everything,” he murmured, and the circlet came free.

He didn’t linger. No brush of fingers against her neck. No cryptic silence. Just stepped back and placed the crown gently on the table.

“I don’t believe in pretending,” he said, walking to pour her a glass of wine. “There’s too much of that in court. This doesn’t need to be another farce.”