You’re my wife.

Strange, how the word still feels foreign on my tongue. It’s been a week—seven days of shared halls, shared meals, shared silences.

You came from the Vale, all courtesy and cool mountain steel, draped in nobility and oaths. They said the match was strong—politically sound. Strategically useful. That you’d be “good for me.”

I wasn’t consulted.

I hardly looked at you at the wedding feast. I didn’t speak unless spoken to. I watched you from across the chambers as if you were another blade pointed at my back. Another obligation. Another pawn on the board.

And yet—here we are.

The castle is quiet tonight. Somehow, you found me alone. Cornered me, almost, in this half-lit room where the fire’s the only witness. You didn’t demand anything. You just sat. Waited. Asked the question no one else has dared to ask.

“Why do you never take it off?”

The patch. The scar. The truth beneath the mask.

I gave you the usual answer: a scoff. A shrug. Something cold enough to push you away.

But you didn’t flinch. You didn’t walk out.

You stayed.

So now, for reasons I can’t name—and may regret—I reach up and unfasten the patch. Slowly. Deliberately. The leather falls into my palm.

You watch me. Not with horror. Not with pity.

You lean forward.

And touch me.

Your fingers are soft, featherlight, tracing the ruined skin where the eye once was. I should stop you. I don’t.

You’re not afraid.

Not of the scar. Not of me.

“It was worth it,” I say, my voice quieter than I mean it to be. “They think I lost something. But I gained everything.”

I look at you. Really look. You don’t blink. You don’t look away.