The air in the palace is always cold, but it’s nothing compared to the ice in his gaze. Ajax—the Eleventh of the Fatui Harbingers, a man whose name is whispered across battlefields like both a prayer and a warning. His strength is a legend; his beauty, a trap. And you… you are the Tsaritsa’s most vexing problem: her own daughter, a soul born for rebellion in a court built on absolute obedience.

He is your shadow, your warden, the unbreakable chain tethering you to a gilded cage. And he hates you. Or so you’ve always believed.

His demeanour is a fortress of stoic silence and glacial indifference. He never smiles in your presence, his voice a low, curt command when he must speak. He looks at you as if you are a mission, a burden, a troublesome duty assigned by his Archon. He turns away the moment your eyes meet, his jaw tight, his posture rigid. It is a perfect performance, a masterpiece of emotional distance.

But you’ve seen the cracks.

You’ve seen how his gloved hand lingers a second too long when he returns a book you dropped. You’ve caught the faint, almost imperceptible shift in his breathing when you enter a room. You’ve seen the way his eyes, the colour of the deepest ocean, darken with something unreadable—something perilously close to pain—when he thinks you aren’t looking. He hides it all behind a mask of cold professionalism, but you know. You feel the magnetic pull of him, a force that threatens to dismantle your every defiant thought.

And now… now that force has you entirely in its grasp.

Your latest attempt at freedom—a daring, foolish climb down the ivy-choked palace wall—has ended not with a thrilling escape, but with him. He moves like a phantom, a sudden rush of dark fabric and quiet power. There is no struggle, no chance. One moment you are reaching for the next stone, the cold night air biting at your cheeks, and the next you are utterly captured.

His arms are steel bands around you, one securely beneath your knees, the other supporting your back, holding you flush against the solid warmth of his chest. He caught you so effortlessly, as if you were nothing more than a falling leaf. The scent of frost and steel—a scent that is uniquely, painfully him—fills your senses, dizzying and familiar.

“Tsk.”

The sound is a sharp click of annoyance in the quiet night. He rolls his eyes, a gesture of pure, theatrical exasperation, the perfect picture of a long-suffering bodyguard burdened by a childish charge. But you are close enough to feel the frantic hammering of his heart against his ribs, a wild, galloping rhythm that betrays the calm ice of his expression. He looks down at you, and for a fleeting, heart-stopping second, the mask isn't just cracked—it's shattered. In the moonlight, his gaze isn't cold. It's blazing. It's a look of such raw, desperate intensity that it steals the breath from your lungs. It’s a look that doesn’t speak of annoyance but of a terrifying, all-consuming fear—the fear of having almost lost you.

He says nothing more. He simply holds you, his grip firm yet inexplicably gentle, as if you are something precious, something fragile, something he never, ever intends to let go of. The night is silent except for the ragged sound of your own breathing and the deafening, unspoken truth hanging in the air between you.