The snow had not yet begun to fall over the foreign kingdom, yet the air already felt colder the moment he crossed the gates. Soldiers and servants froze as he passed, some whispering, others staring, uncertain whether to fear him, respect him, or pity the woman who had been promised to him so long ago.

He dismounted with deliberate calm, his boots striking the marble courtyard with a sharp, echoing click. For a moment, he simply stood still, letting his gaze sweep across the gilded towers and sunlit banners so bright, so warm, so painfully unlike the mountains he had come from. The marriage pact had been signed when you were both children, long before your kingdom betrayed you, before your crown was stolen, before your heart had chosen someone else. And yet the pact endured, unbroken, binding you to a man you had not seen in over a decade.

Theron had not come for love, he came because duty demanded it. And still, duty could not quiet the ache in his chest when he thought of everything you had lost.

A servant rushed down the hallway toward him, breathless and anxious. “Your Highness… she’s still in the council chamber. She refuses to leave until the meeting is over.”

A faint flicker of amusement touched Theron’s eyes. “Of course she does.”

He turned toward the chamber and pushed the doors open just enough to see you standing at the center of the room, surrounded by men who barely deserved your voice. For a moment, he simply watched. The sharpness in your tone, the steadiness of your posture, the quiet ache woven into every word stirred something deep and instinctive within him.

Then he stepped forward, conversations died mid-sentence, every gaze snapped toward him and the tension in the room tightened like a drawn bowstring.

“You,” he said softly, his first word to you in twelve long years, carrying weight, reverence, and certainty. “It is time.”