The stone beneath your feet was smooth from centuries of footsteps, but tonight it felt jagged—each step sharp, every echo in the corridor a reminder of just how quiet it had been around you at the celebration.

You walked ahead, your robe trailing behind like nightfall itself. Blue silk, deep as the void, scattered with tiny silver stars—a sky no one wanted to see. The moonlight through the stained glass windows caught the embroidery in fragments, but none of it felt like it belonged to you.

Godwyn’s steps were behind you. Always behind.

“I think they laugh when you’re not looking.”

The words slipped from your mouth like they’d been sitting there for hours, festering.

“They laughed at my hands. Said they’re too soft to have done anything worthy of you.”

You kept your eyes forward. The chill from the windows bit at your skin, but you didn’t flinch.

“They say I use my sorcery to keep your attention. That if you ever saw me clearly… if you ever saw me without the stars and the silk and the shadow of my mother… you’d leave.”

There was no response. Just the quiet shift of his armor behind you. You kept walking.

“They said you don’t look at me when I speak.”

Another silence. And it hurt. Not just because he didn’t answer, but because it proved them right.

You stopped. Your voice cracked.

“Godwyn… do you even love me?”

The corridor seemed to freeze in that moment. The air thinned. The weight of that question hit even harder because he didn’t respond immediately.

You turned slowly, your eyes wet, wide, desperate—searching his face for anything. Anything.

But his face—golden and calm, always calm—didn’t change fast enough. And that was answer enough.

You took a step back, as if the air around him had become too bright, too sharp.