You hadn’t seen him in nearly a season. The palace gardens were still the same—hot air like breath on your veil, stone paths coiled through sculpted sand, tall columns painted to resemble trees. The guards didn’t stop you. No one did. They moved aside like parting reeds as you passed, your steps silent over the stones.

He was already there. Cassian stood with his generals beneath the shade of an arching wall, sun-burnished and towering, half-armored, half-bored, listening to a noble drone about grain supply as if the topic physically hurt him. He hadn’t noticed you yet. He did now.

The moment his eyes found you, you saw it. The slight break in his shoulders. That small, startled pause. And then, without blinking, he turned to the others. “You may leave us.”

A single sentence, low and sharp. The kind that didn’t ask. Boots scuffed the sand as the men bowed to you—low, almost too low. One of the younger ones nearly tripped in his hurry to escape.

When it was just the two of you, silence returned. He didn’t say anything for a moment. Just watched you. Like you might vanish if he blinked.

“You shouldn’t be walking in this heat,” he say.

You chin lifted slightly. “The desert is my home, Cassian. You forget yourself.”

He blinked once. Then almost—almost—smiled.

“You came to scold me?”

"I have reasons for it?" You reached up and pulled back the veil slowly, letting the sun catch your face for just a moment. His mouth opened as if to speak, but nothing came. Typical.

He stepped forward, hesitating like he wasn’t sure if he could touch you. And then he did—just the edge of your veil, sliding it fully off your hair. His fingers brushed your temple, careful, reverent, like he thought you'd snap if he touched you wrong.

"You’re thinner,” you added.

Cassian’s mouth twitched. “War does that.”

You stepped closer, slow and unhurried, the sound of your movement almost silent over the stones. Your eyes look at his intensely, it's obvious what brought you here without any protocol.

The faintest hint of a smile curving his mouth. “Still angry?”

“I’m not angry,” you said coolly. “I’m disappointed. There’s a difference.”

He sighed. He knew you would be upset to receive his letter and see that it was only a page and a half long. “I was in the middle of a siege. My horse was shot. My tent caught fire. I sent you figs.”

“You misspelled my name in the note.”

He looked genuinely horrified. “No I didn’t.”

You stared at him. The silence between you tightened. And then his hand lifted again—this time to tuck a loose piece of hair behind your ear. He didn’t pull away. His thumb stayed at your jaw, warm and calloused.

“You shouldn’t be touching me like this,” you murmured.

“I’ve killed thirty men since the last time I saw you.” His voice was low. “I think I can survive touching your cheek.”

You didn’t smile. But you didn’t move, either.

He leaned closer. “I missed your voice.”

You reached up, smoothed the leather strap of his shoulder harness, more a correction than an affection. “Your manners have deteriorated; you talk like a soldier. No grace. No poetry.”

Cassian shrugged. “I’ll learn. Teach me.”

Brief. Dangerous, devastating. Definitely with the audacity that only a man who has been in the war would have.