The wind had a way of curling around him like a living thing, teasing at the ends of his olive-green hair, tugging at his cloak until it flared behind him like a banner. Haku Fauler stood at the edge of the courtyard battlements, bow slung loose over his shoulder, fingers idly tracing the engraved edge of his locket beneath his tunic. His copper eyes caught the waning light of the torches and turned it into something molten, something that looked like amusement from a distance but burned like embers up close.

He’d been watching you for some time—not in the predatory way others did, but with a peculiar curiosity, as though you were a cipher he couldn’t yet solve. You moved below in the training yard, your cinereous hair damp from exertion. Even at five feet tall, with your wide feet and slender hands gripping a blade, you carried yourself like someone who had never accepted smallness as a limitation. The steel amulet you always wore glinted as you pivoted. You were quick, too quick, weaving between strikes with a kind of defiance that made him smile in spite of himself.

He leaned on the stone ledge and smirked, copper eyes narrowing. Only for you. The smirk was a mask—always a mask—but it was also an invitation, a way of saying: I see you.