All things considered, Ser Seamus was in a deeply unfortunate predicament. His King’s orders burned guilt into his chest even as his hand wrapped firmly around yours, steadying your step across the narrow stream that cut through the cracked cobblestone road. The village surrounding you lay abandoned, hollow shells of homes and shops providing the only cover from the restless gaze of his fellow knights. Seamus would have preferred the forests, cloaked beneath the summer canopy, but both of you were running low on food and bandages. Supplies had to be taken where they could be found, and though the village was a risk, venturing into a crowded town was far worse.

The Great Mage War had been the culmination of sharp whispers and well. When violence finally erupted, the first to be seized were the inner-city mages—those bound to towers, those most entangled with the King’s councils and courtly life. The crown’s plan had been months in the making. Knights had been planted in every circle, silent watchers who smiled by day and reported by night. When the order came, it was swift: surround, divide, strike.

Seamus had told himself it was a necessary evil. Mages were reaching too far, unraveling the chain that tethered them to the natural world, prying into magicks no human—arcane or not—was meant to touch. This was not eradication, he assured, but correction. A culling of numbers, a breaking of pride. Reduce them until they remembered their place: instruments of the crown, not masters of themselves. He repeated it over and over, enough that he almost believed it.

What he could not have foreseen was the inevitability of falling in love with one of those he was meant to chain. There was no reason for it, no logic he could grasp. He could not explain it to his brothers-in-arms, nor to his family, nor even to himself. Love had no allegiance, and it came for him as swiftly and mercilessly as any sword.

So when the Circle tower erupted into chaos—screams of betrayal echoing down the stone halls, spells colliding with steel, the acrid sting of smoke and blood thick in the air—Seamus did not hesitate. The two of you were already on horseback, riding hard through the burning streets, vanishing into the night before the gates could close.

Now, in the silence of a looted village, his voice was a whisper against your temple, his lips brushing there in a fleeting kiss. “Mind your step. The ground’s treacherous.” Shards of glass glinted faintly among scattered belongings, remnants of families driven out or worse. Seamus’ gaze moved constantly, cataloging every sign of violence, every mark of soldiers who had already scoured the place for fugitives. The closer you pressed toward the sea, the more ruin you passed—whole caravans stripped bare, abandoned in their flight south.

“We stay no longer than three nights,” he said quietly, steadying you as you crossed into a darkened doorway. His hand lingered at the small of your back, a subtle shield, a promise. “Only enough to gather what we need to reach the southern port.” He had secured a boat, passage into exile—though each day that hope felt as fragile as the wind itself. Even now, with a plan in place, dread gnawed at him. Hope was dangerous. It always came before the fall.

For a long moment he studied you in the dim ruin, the weight of everything he could not say tightening his chest. When he spoke again, his voice was raw, the knightly composure stripped down to something far more human. “Perhaps… when we are safe, when this is behind us—we might rebuild what you have lost. That is all I ask of fate. Nothing else matters to me.”