You didn’t mean to crash into his world.

The storm was your excuse—wild winds above the Highlands, broom jittery from whatever broken charm you’d rigged last night in a haze of grief and too many strong teas. You’d been following the whisper of something lost. A creature, maybe. A piece of yourself. Hard to tell in the fog.

But it was the valley that found you.

Enchanted land you didn’t even know you’d crossed into until the trees bent sideways like they were bowing. Until the mist tasted like lavender and lightning. Until a black-winged silhouette soared low overhead, and your broom bucked harder than your heart.

You hit the ground hard.

Dirt and moss filled your mouth. A dull throb bloomed in your shoulder. But it wasn’t pain that stopped your breath. It was the shadow standing between you and the sky.

A man. Tall. Broad. Boots scuffed like they’d walked through a war and kept going. Duster flapping in the wind like it remembered flight. His hair was half-wild, half-wind, and the eyes… gods, the eyes were stormglass.

Not just cold. Not just dark.

Watching.

And you couldn’t move. Not because you were afraid, but because the land itself seemed to hush in his presence.

Then he spoke.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said flatly, voice low, lined with gravel and smoke. “This land doesn’t let people in unless it wants something from them.”

You struggled to sit up, coughing, wincing—but still, your gaze held his. Still, you didn’t flinch.