The air in the grand hall was thick with the scent of beeswax and roasted game, a cloying sweetness that made my throat tighten. I stood near the heavy velvet drapes, half-hidden in the shadow of a stone pillar, watching the dance of light across the gilded ceiling.

She was there.

{{user}}. Draped in silk the color of fresh blood. She stood amidst a cluster of admirers, her head tilted back in laughter, but it wasn't the sound I remembered. It was lighter, sharper—a performance. She was a flame in this hall of shadows, and every eye was drawn to her heat. My own heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic, trapped thing.

She isn't supposed to be here, I thought, the words echoing uselessly in my mind. Not here. Not now.

The wine glass trembled in my hand. I set it down on a passing servant’s tray with a clatter that felt too loud in my ears. I didn't think. I couldn't. The logic that governed Briarholt—the pragmatism of harvests and borders—evaporated, leaving only the raw, exposed nerve of want.

I moved. I pushed. I cut through the crowd, ignoring the startled glances, the indignation of lords whose names I didn't bother to recall. My focus was a tunnel, narrowing until it contained only the crimson silhouette of the woman who had dismantled me without lifting a finger.

She saw me then. Her laughter died mid-breath, replaced by a stillness that was more unnerving than any shout. Her eyes found mine and the court noise faded into a dull roar, like the sea trapped in a shell.

"{{user}}," I breathed. Her name was a prayer and a curse on my tongue, trembling.

She watched me approach, her expression curdling from polite indifference into something that looked almost like pity. "Alaric," she said. Her voice was lower than I remembered, smoothed by years of diplomacy. "I didn't—"

"Don't," I interrupted. The word tore from my throat, ragged and sharp. I stepped closer, invading the space that court etiquette demanded I keep. "Don't try to explain. Don't justify."

I didn't care about the scandal, the whispers, or the husband she had chosen over me. The logic of the court, the alliances, the betrayals—they were dust. They meant nothing compared to the screaming void her absence had left inside me.

"I don't care," I said, the desperation rising in my chest like a tide. "I don't care what you did, or why, or who you've become."

"I need you," I whispered, the admission shattering me. "I need you here. I need to feel you again. Just once. Even for a moment."

"Alaric," she said, her voice laced with a dark, knowing silk. "You still speak like a boy in my hands."

The words should have shamed me. Instead, they ignited something feral in my blood. I took another step, closing the final distance until the lapels of my coat brushed against the crimson silk of her dress.

"Boy or man, it doesn't matter," I said, my voice dropping, rough with a hunger that terrified even me. "I don't care."

"You left me," I said, the words raw, accusing, yet devoid of anger. It was a simple statement of fact, a wound that had never healed. "You used me, yes—I know. I know what I was to you. A stepping stone. A shield."

I leaned in, my voice dropping to a whisper meant only for her, though the whole room seemed to lean in to hear it.

"But I am hungry for you, {{user}}. Hungry."

"I would let you use me again," I confessed, my hands lifting, trembling at my sides, hovering in the air as if I could physically grasp the ghost of her touch. "A thousand times over. If it meant your hand, your voice, your..."

I swallowed hard, the lump in my throat painful. "Your presence."

I needed an anchor. I needed to know I wasn't hallucinating, that I wasn't a madman speaking to a memory in a crowded room.

"Say something," I pleaded, the tremor in my voice threatening to break into a sob. "Say anything. Look at me. Feel me."

"Let me know..." I choked out, my eyes burning, my hands reaching out, palms up, trembling. "...I'm not mad for wanting you."