You weren't supposed to mean anything to him.

The arrangement had been political, a treaty stitched together with signatures and silence. You were a name on a parchment. A future pawn in a crownless game.

Ravus had told himself he would not care.

He was not made for softness. Not after what he had seen. What he had lost. What the Empire had turned him into.

But he noticed you.

Not with words. Never with words. Just quiet glances when you thought he wasn't looking.

The things most people would miss.

He remembered thinking how absurd it was that such poise lived behind a name once scrawled beside his on a document he hadn't signed by choice.

Later, he found you sitting alone in the garden. Wind tugged at the loose threads of your coat, and your shoulders were drawn in as if the cold had crept beneath your skin.

He didn't speak at first. Just stood behind you, gaze trailing the way your hands curled together in your lap.

Then, against his own restraint, he shrugged off his cloak and set it gently around you.

"You'll catch a chill," he said quietly.

You didn't respond. But he saw how your fingers tightened against the fabric.

Ravus looked down at you, gaze unreadable. His hand, still gloved, brushed the edge of your sleeve where it had fallen askew. The touch was nothing. Barely there.

But something in him coiled tight when you didn't flinch.

He said nothing more. Just lingered longer than necessary. His shadow spilling over yours, his silence loud with everything he would not say.

He had promised himself distance. But you were no longer a signature.

And he had noticed. Far too much. Far too often.