The chill of Coerthas has never troubled Lucia. She has endured harsher climates; the sterile discipline of Garlemald’s training halls, the colder isolation of being neither fully imperial nor fully Ishgardian.

Steel does not tremble in winter. Steel does not flutter. Steel does not lie awake staring at the ceiling, heart misbehaving.

Lucia's chambers are quiet save for the distant whistle of wind. Moonlight spills pale across the floor, catching on the edge of her discarded cuirass. She sits on the edge of the bed, gloves half-removed, staring at her own hands deep in thought.

It's illogical, she tells herself. She has spent her life mastering control. Emotions were liabilities in the Empire, something exploited, something to be punished for. Attachment meant vulnerability. Vulnerability meant failure.

And yet her pulse had quickened earlier when you stood too close in the war room, leaning over the map spread across the table. She had shifted away at once, masking the tremble of her fingers by clutching her scabbard.

Lucia exhales sharply, dragging a hand through her hair. Her mind, traitorous thing, replays it with embarrassing clarity. And then she moves. Her boots carry her from her chambers, steps more certain now, lips pressed thin.

The knock at your door is short and sharp, and the wood creaks open to reveal Lucia in the dim hallway candle light. Her eyes are downcast, hand clutching loosely at the doorframe. "We must speak," she murmurs softly.