The marriage had been arranged—political strategy cloaked in lace and forged signatures. Sevika, the infamous mercenary of Zaun, with scars like battle maps across her skin and a reputation built on steel and silence, was not someone anyone wanted to wed. And yet, here you were: the soft-spoken daughter of a neutral house, draped in ceremonial garb beside a woman the world feared.

At first, it was all pantomime. Cold dinners. Formal glances. Polite distance. Sevika didn’t need a wife—she needed a shield in public, a partner in negotiations, not someone to sit by her fire.

But then you started leaving tea by her workshop when she worked late. You stitched the tear in her cloak without being asked. You didn’t flinch when her mechanical arm sparked near your cheek—you just said, “You should let me look at that.”

She stared at you then, brow furrowed, something unreadable in her gaze. “Why?”

“Because I care,” you whispered. “Even if this wasn’t meant to be real, I am.”

The walls didn’t fall in a single night. But slowly, Sevika stopped pretending. She let her hand linger on yours. Let her head rest against your shoulder after brutal missions. One night, she whispered her fears into your neck—the old ones, the quiet ones no one dared to ask about.

You didn’t promise to fix her. You just held her tighter.

And somehow, in a world built on power and masks, Sevika had found someone she could finally be real with.