I sat upon my chair at the obsidian table, surrounded by the other High Lords of the Courts. Their voices murmured and clashed like distant thunder, debating borders, alliances, and oaths old as the stars. I spoke with careful calculation, Helion’s laughter echoed like molten gold, and Beron, ever sour-faced, muttered under his breath, already displeased with the direction of the meeting.

My posture remained still, composed, an unmoving pillar amidst the tempest of conversation. My face was carved from stone—bored, blank, unreadable. I let their words wash over me, a tide I had no interest in swimming against. Not today. Not until—

I saw you.

You stood beside Kallias, a half-step behind, your eyes scanning the room with quiet alertness. There was grace in your stillness, power veiled under the layers of courtly decorum. And yet, it wasn’t merely your beauty that held me in place. It was the pull—fierce, sudden, and ancient.

Time slowed. My breath caught in my throat. My heart—gods, it roared.

The bond snapped into place without warning, silver and burning and irrevocable. A thread, unseen yet unbreakable, tethered you to me. My mate.

You.

A crack in my mask—small, barely there—but I felt it. A flicker of something too raw to name sparked in my chest. I straightened slightly in my chair, forcing the breath from my lungs in silence.

I could not—would not—show it here, in front of them.

My fingers curled subtly around the arm of my chair. I turned my head, slowly, so as not to draw attention. But Cassian—ever observant—caught the shift. He arched a brow, leaning just slightly in my direction.

I murmured under my breath, keeping my voice low enough that only he could hear.

"Who is that with Kallias?" I asked, my tone low and smooth, but there was a sharpness in it I couldn't mask. A tremor of something wild beneath the surface. I nodded subtly toward you.

Cassian’s eyes flicked across the room, then back to me, a knowing smile playing on his lips.