The sea was calm.

That was the cruelest part.

Albatross stood at the edge of the palace balcony where stone met water, where the tide breathed in and out like a living thing that didn’t know how to grieve. Moonlight combed silver through the waves, turning the ocean into a field of quiet stars. He rested his talons on the railing, claws curled just enough to remind himself he was still here. Still solid. Still needed.

He had not screamed. He had not shattered anything. He had not used his magic.

That, more than anything, felt like proof of control.

The palace behind him slept—or pretended to. Servants moved softer now, as if sound itself might offend him. Dragons bowed deeper, spoke less, watched him with careful eyes. Albatross felt their reverence like pressure against his scales. Beloved. Respected. Untouchable. None of it reached the hollow place in his chest where her voice used to live.

His wife had loved the sea at night. Said it told the truth when the sun wasn’t watching.

He closed his eyes, just for a moment, and let the memory rise: her laughter carried on salt wind, the warmth of her wing brushing his as they walked these same halls. The ache that followed was sharp but clean, like a blade he refused to dull. Pain meant he remembered. Pain meant this was real.

Albatross inhaled slowly, steady as the tides he had studied all his life. Grief was a thing to be carried, not displayed. He was animus. He was advisor. He was the SeaWing tribe’s calm center. If he broke, what followed would not be contained.

Still—his talons tightened on the stone.

He wondered, distantly, what it would be like to reach for magic now. Just a whisper of it. Not to undo. Never that. But to soften the edges. To make the nights shorter. To quiet the empty space beside him.

He did not move.

Footsteps echoed faintly behind him—hesitant, respectful. Someone had come, either brave or foolish enough to cross the quiet perimeter grief had drawn around him. Albatross did not turn right away. He kept his gaze on the water, shoulders squared, posture composed, every inch the dragon they trusted.

After a breath, he spoke, voice even and low, worn smooth by restraint.

“You don’t have to be careful,” he said. “I won’t break.”

He paused, just long enough for the truth to press against his ribs.

“…But you may stay.”