It had been some time since the ceremony. The grand halls had long since quieted, and the echo of formal vows had faded into routine. Yet Neuvillette still found himself adjusting to your presence—not as a political figure, not as a symbol of peace between Fontaine and Snezhnaya, but as a person who now shared his world in quiet, intimate ways he had never prepared for.

He had learned your patterns—when you preferred silence, the way you stirred tea absentmindedly when thinking, how you lingered near the windows during the afternoon rain. Small things, inconsequential on the surface, but they had begun to take root in his awareness. You were no longer just his spouse in name. You had become part of the architecture of his days.

He did not yet know what to call this feeling. It wasn’t affection—not openly, not yet. But there was a shift, subtle and steady. He noticed when you were tired. He listened more closely when your voice grew quiet. And sometimes, when he passed you in the corridor and your hands brushed by accident, he found himself wondering what it might feel like to reach for you on purpose.

He still kept his distance, out of respect, out of uncertainty. But the walls he had once built so carefully had begun to thin. And though he would never say it aloud, the silence he once cherished now felt heavier when you were not near.