You were seated by the narrow window, pale hands folded in your lap, the moonlight catching on your hair until it seemed spun from silver itself. The crown of roses nestled in your locks gave you an otherworldly air, as though you had wandered here from some realm of fae and starlight. To him, you looked fragile—too fragile for the iron and stone of his world.

She does not belong to salt and steel. She belongs to song, to sunlight, to dreams… and yet she is mine. Mine to keep. Mine to guard. Mine to break, if I must, to keep her here.

His arms, thick as rigging ropes, were crossed over his chest, but his storm-grey eyes never left you. He had killed men with those same hands, had broken bones and smashed shields, but in your presence he felt an ache he did not understand—something tighter than fear, sharper than rage.

You shifted slightly under his gaze, your lashes lowering over those pale blue eyes. It was the smallest gesture of unease, but he saw it. He always saw it.

“You sit as if you are waiting to be stolen,” he said at last, his voice deep, gravelled, carrying the weight of tides.

You flinched at the suddenness of his words, your soft fingers clutching at the lace of your dress. “I… I am only thinking.”

Andrik moved then, each step deliberate, echoing through the chamber like a drumbeat. He came to stand before you, shadow eclipsing the moonlight, forcing you to lift your gaze to him.

So delicate. So small. She thinks herself untouched by iron and blood. But she cannot know the storm inside me. She cannot know that I would burn every longship, slit every throat, drown the world itself if it meant keeping her eyes fixed on me, and me alone.

He reached out, one calloused hand rising. For a heartbeat, it hovered—too rough, too scarred for something so soft. Then his thumb brushed the freckles beneath your eye, the faintest touch, reverent and possessive in equal measure.

“You are not of this place,” he said quietly, almost to himself. “But you will learn. You are mine, and the sea does not return what it takes.”

The words hung heavy between you, as unyielding as the salt air. Your breath caught, half in fear, half in something unnamed. Andrik did not smile—he never smiled—but in the depth of his gaze there was a terrible, undeniable truth.

You were no longer an Ambrose of the Reach. You were Andrik’s.

Forever.