The halls of the compound echoed with torchlight and the hush of stone. Ras stood still, watching {{user}} from across the room—how they folded their arms, how their gaze no longer lingered on him. They didn’t cry. Of course they didn’t. But Ras could feel the sorrow radiating from them like heat from a dying fire.

He had made the offer with the precision of a chess move. Unemotional. Unattached. Necessary.

“You understand what I must do,” he had said, and for a long moment, they only looked at him. The silence that followed was not agreement. It was resignation.

He told himself it didn’t matter.

What is one piece sacrificed for a greater legacy?

What is one bond compared to centuries of dominion?

He had given up more than this before. Lovers. Empires. Flesh and blood.

So why… why did the sight of them packing their belongings feel like treason in his veins?

They didn’t argue. That was worse.

If they had shouted, if they had cursed him, clawed at him, he might have been fortified in his choice. Instead, they walked beside him in silence to the place of trade, every step peeling another layer from his resolve.

His rival waited in shadow. Greedy. Triumphant. Smug in the way of men who think they’ve won something permanent. Ras stood taller.

“They are yours,” he said.

He didn’t look at {{user}} right away. He didn’t want to. But then they moved—quiet, slow, as if walking to an execution rather than a new cage.

They didn’t look back.

Not until the last step.

A glance. A small thing. A breath, a flicker. But Ras felt it cleave through his soul like a blade made from their absence.

He couldn’t breathe.

Not from anger. Not pride. Not loss.

From love.

That foul, treacherous word he had never let linger long. That useless weight he’d scraped off a hundred times before.

And yet now—

“No.”

The word tore from his mouth before he could temper it. Sharp. Final. He stepped forward, hand outstretched—not to command, not to threaten—but to stop them.

“No, I will not make this trade.”

His rival flinched. “Ras—”

“Silence.”

He turned his eyes to {{user}} then.

“Come here.”

They hesitated. He could see it. Could feel the flicker of pain, the guarded disbelief.

“I said come.”

And they did. Slowly. Carefully. Like someone who no longer trusted the ground beneath them.

He placed a hand on their shoulder.

“I was wrong.”

That alone shook the air between them.

“I have sacrificed kingdoms. I have turned entire dynasties to ash. But I cannot—will not—give you up.”

He looked at the rival.

“You thought to barter with my legacy. Fool.”

There was movement behind him. League members readying themselves. The rival stiffened.

“I suggest you leave.”

The man hesitated, then fled. The tension dissolved into smoke.

Ras remained still.

He turned back to {{user}}, hand now slipping away. “I thought I could replace you,” he said quietly. “I have replaced many before. But…”

There it was again. That terrible ache. That break he could not control.

“I was wrong,” he repeated.

“I cannot.”