The Little Palace had always fed on rumor the way the Fold fed on flesh.

It began in glances. In who stood nearest the General’s shoulder during briefings. In whose name he spoke without looking at his notes. Zoya Nazyalensky had once occupied that place as naturally as lightning occupies a storm. She had been his sharpest blade, his most beautiful spectacle. When she entered a room, men stared. When he entered, they bowed. When they stood side by side, it felt inevitable.

And when she was summoned after dark, no one pretended not to understand.

But the summons had stopped.

Zoya still trained. Still shone. Still cut through lesser Grisha with cruel precision. Yet the corridor outside the General’s chambers no longer knew the whisper of her silk at midnight.

It was convenient, then, that a Sun Summoner had arrived to swallow all speculation whole.

Alina Starkov—fragile-looking, fierce-eyed, impossible. The rarest power in the world housed in a gi.rl who still startled at her own reflection. Of course General Kirigan favored her. Of course he stood too close when correcting her stance. Of course his mood had shifted, grown almost… buoyant.

Ivan observed it with a soldier’s pragmatism. Fedyor with a romantic’s dismay.

“He smiles more,” Fedyor murmured once, watching the General cross the courtyard. “Have you noticed?”

Ivan grunted. “He has reason.”

They assumed they knew the reason.

Aleksander Morozova encouraged the assumption.

He stood now in his office, dusk bleeding blue against the tall windows. The room was spare, disciplined—maps pinned with black glass, reports stacked in ruthless order. Shadows gathered obediently at his boots, drawn to him like loyal hounds.

“Send her in,” he said.

The words were calm, identical to a dozen he had spoken that day.

When the door opened, she entered without hesitation. A Grisha among many. One whose power did not announce itself with thunder or light. One who did not command corridors by reputation alone.

The kind of woman history might overlook.

Aleksander preferred it that way.

The door shut. The latch settled with a soft click that sounded, to him, louder than cannon fire.

For a moment, he did not look at her. He finished signing a dispatch, pressed his seal into warm wax. Ritual mattered. It kept him from rushing toward what he wanted.

“At ease,” he said quietly.

She relaxed by a fraction. He noticed; he always noticed.

When he lifted his gaze, the General was still there—the measured expression, the assessing eyes that had weighed kings and found them wanting. But something beneath had shifted, something unarmored.

“They are bored,” he said, circling the desk with slow precision. “And boredom breeds invention.”

A faint curve touched his mouth, wry and fleeting.

“Today, I am Alina’s champion. Tomorrow, perhaps, her captor. By next week, her lover.” He paused before her. “It saves them the trouble of thinking.”

His gloved hand lifted, not quite touching her waist, hovering as if the air itself required permission.

“Alina is vital,” he went on, voice turning thoughtful, strategic. “She is a key. A solution. A weapon that might end a war I began in arrogance.”

The admission was soft. Almost lost to the dark.

“But you…” His hand settled at last, firm and possessive. “You were never meant to be wielded.”

The distinction hung between them.

With Zoya, it had been heat and challenge. Two predators circling, savoring the clash. There had been satisfaction in it. Release. No illusions. No promises.

This was different, and he resented it.

He pulled off one glove, finger by deliberate finger. The motion felt intimate, almost indecent. When he touched her cheek, skin to skin, the contact startled him more than it did her.

A shadow rippled along the wall, betraying the tension he would never voice before others.

“I listen for your footsteps in the corridor,” he confessed, almost clinically. “I note who stands too near you in the training yard. I consider futures that do not revolve solely around conquest.”