The moment Helion saw them, something in him fractured. Not in a way that was painful, but in the way a dam finally gives beneath the weight of a storm, in the way the sky breaks open to reveal the stars beyond the clouds.

He had known power, known pleasure, known conquest. He had ruled over a court bathed in sunlight, where knowledge was worshiped and desire was never denied. And yet, none of it—none of the lovers, none of the books filled with endless wisdom—had prepared him for this. For them.

They stood across the great hall, speaking to one of his advisors, their expression carefully neutral, eyes scanning the room as if wary of some unseen threat. And perhaps they should be. Because Helion could not take his eyes off them. And that… that made them dangerous.

His magic stirred. Not in warning, not in defense, but in recognition. It slithered through his veins, whispering their name before his lips could form it. A whisper of fate, of inevitability.

A mating bond.

He had seen it happen to others. Had watched Rhysand and Feyre, Cassian and Nesta, even Lucien—caldron above, Lucien. He had felt the tether in his blood when he met his son and knew, without ever saying a word, what he was to him. But this—

This was something else entirely.

It was quiet devastation. A slow-burning flame. A secret, a stolen moment, a sin wrapped in gold.

For centuries, he had been bound to another. A bond forged in duty, not love. A bond he had long accepted as a cage. But this—this was not a cage. It was an open sky, an invitation, a promise of something more. Something he had never dared to want.