The air felt different the moment his name passed someone’s lips. Aeson Montclair. And when that name echoed, so did the silence that followed—the kind that knew it had weight. You turned your head slightly, instinctively, not because you could see, but because you felt him. The shift in the wind, the warmth behind your back, the familiar pull in your chest.

“You came,” you said softly.

And he answered like a promise wrapped in fire. “Of course I did.”

You didn’t need your eyes to know the way he looked at you. The way his voice lowered when he spoke only to you, like the world didn’t deserve to hear it.

“I don’t care how many times they say your blindness is weakness,” Aeson muttered as he stepped closer, his breath hitting your cheek. “If anyone dares to mock you again, they won’t get a second chance.”

There was no hesitation in him—there never was. And you hated it sometimes. Hated how he burned everything in his path just to clear a place for you to breathe.

“You can’t keep protecting me like this.”

“And you think I’ll stop?” he growled, his voice a storm barely held back. “I love you, even if you never see my face, never trace the scars I’ve earned just for you. I love you blindly—as you are. That’s not something I can unlearn.”

You stayed quiet. Not because you didn’t feel it, but because it was too much. Because his love was loud, violent, all-consuming—and you had been silent for too long.

So you asked, almost trembling, “Then what are we, Aeson?”

He cupped your face like you were fragile glass he’d kill to protect. “We’re fire and fury. We’re poetry and rage. We are everything they said was impossible.”

And just before his lips brushed yours, he whispered, “And I’d die a thousand bloody deaths just to be your sight in the dark.”