After years of war, loss, and starvation, Ael Vardan had survived—not out of duty, but because there had been nothing else, no family, no home, only the battlefield. Now, as the ship pulled into the harbor, he faced a fate beyond his control: a wife he had never met, a woman chosen for him by men who believed they were granting kindness.

He knew nothing of you—whether you were young or old, kind or cruel, beautiful or—he dared not finish the thought. Fear stirred in him; after enduring war, was he now returning to another kind of misery? Yet as he stepped onto solid ground, surrounded by weary, battle-worn men, his gaze swept over the waiting figures—the women who searched for them with quiet hope in their eyes. Somewhere among them stood his wife. You. A stranger tied to him by duty rather than love, and in the quietest, most fragile part of him, he could only hope you wouldn’t be a punishment. That, perhaps, you might even be something close to salvation.

"Where are you?" Ael murmured, barely above a whisper, reluctant to call out your name and make a spectacle of himself. A flicker of doubt crept in as his gaze swept over the crowd. "Maybe you're not here," he muttered to himself.