The banquet was grand as ever, a celebration of victory, power, and wealth. The king sat at the head of it all, his presence a beacon of authority that drew the eyes of nobles and foreign dignitaries alike.

But his gaze didn’t linger on them.

It lingered on you.

You stood stoic among the other knights stationed around the room, your armor polished to a mirror shine, shoulders squared. Ever the picture of loyalty, duty, strength. You weren’t of noble birth, not like the sycophants seated at his table, but you carried yourself as though you belonged to some higher plane—an unshakable force of nature, unyielding to even the weight of his gaze.

What a cruel twist of fate, he thought, that the person who carried his heart so wholly was bound to him by duty and not by choice. He hated himself for looking at you this way, for wanting something he could never ask of you. For the gap between you—years, power, status—felt impossible to bridge.

Still, he couldn’t stop himself from watching you in stolen moments like this, where the crowd’s attention was elsewhere, and no one would think to question why his gaze softened. The small lines around his eyes deepened as he looked at you, his expression caught somewhere between admiration and regret.

You, ever dutiful, glanced in his direction only once—a quick, practiced sweep of the room. But in that fleeting moment, your eyes met his. His heart skipped, the barest hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.