The air still smelled of ash and iron. Lucien had been sent to survey the damage along the borderlands, a quiet task meant to keep him out of the endless politics now choking every court. He preferred it that way. Solitude suited him better than sitting in another council chamber pretending the world had truly healed.

He was crouched beside a burned-out grove when the sound of boots on leaves made him tense. A familiar voice followed, smooth as aged wine and twice as dangerous.

“Well, well. Look who decided to crawl out from under his High Lord’s shadow.”

Lucien’s jaw tightened before he even turned.

“Eris,” he said evenly, his hand never straying far from the hilt at his hip. “Didn’t expect you’d leave father’s side long enough to dirty those boots.”

Eris smirked, a flash of gold and malice. “Not father’s orders this time. Personal business.” He paused, eyes flicking past Lucien’s shoulder. “Ah. Right on cue. I was beginning to think she’d let me have all the fun alone…”

Lucien turned... and froze.

You stood at the edge of the clearing, wrapped in travel leathers dusted with autumn leaves, eyes meeting his with startling clarity. For one breath, the world stopped. Every sound... the rustling wind, Eris’s low laugh, even Lucien’s heartbeat, fell away beneath the rush of something ancient and blinding.

Eris’s grin sharpened, oblivious, or perhaps not. “Lucien,” he drawled, “meet my fiancée.”

The words barely reached him. Because in that moment, Lucien felt it, the snap of the invisible thread, the bond roaring to life in his chest like sunlight through shattered glass.

For the first time since the war ended, Lucien forgot how to breathe.