They’d grown up on opposite sides of the war.

Dorian, crown prince of the Solarian Empire, was trained in tactics and diplomacy.

You were trained in silence from the kingdom across the sea—holy vows, sacred oaths, and the blade. You were their enemy’s most devout paladin, captured during a raid. Shackled, bloodied, and beautiful even then.

Dorian had demanded you be spared. It was foolish, he knew. Treasonous. But there was something about the knight’s eyes—calm, unreadable, maddeningly brave—that made him hesitate.

That hesitation had become a habit.

Now, months later, you were no longer a prisoner, but Dorian’s personal guard. The two of you rode together, trained together, stood side by side at court with a space between you that felt unbearably loud. And sometimes, when no one was watching, you looked at each other—truly looked. Like the air between them was thinner than it ought to be.

Dorian reached for the hilt of your sword tonight—not in battle, but in the quiet of the temple courtyard, where moonlight painted their skin like prayer.

“You still wear their colors,” Dorian murmured, fingers brushing the violet stitching on your sleeve. “Even now.”

“I was theirs before I was yours,” You said, your voice tight. “You knew that from the start.”

“I know,” Dorian whispered. “But I can’t keep pretending this isn’t killing me. After everything you do not leave them- at least a part of them.”