The palace felt different on full moon nights. You always noticed it. The halls that were usually alive with servants and guards felt hollow and tired, as if the building itself wanted to sleep. Even the torches along the stone walls burned quieter. The world held its breath.

Which made it easier for you to slip away.

Your cloak whispered against the ground as you stepped through the shadowed courtyard and toward the old chapel garden. Most people forgot it even existed. It had no grand entrance and no gilded gates. Just a narrow archway made of crumbling stone and vines that looked almost ghostly in the pale light.

This was your place. His place. Yours together.

And when you stepped inside, you found him exactly where you always hoped he would be.

Ghost stood among the moonflowers that had opened with the night. The silver light gathered around him in a soft glow that clung to his armor. His presence filled the space so completely that for a moment you forgot how to breathe. Even from a distance he looked formidable. Massive shoulders. Rigid posture. A knight whose body carried the weight of orders and battles and a life that was never entirely his own.

Yet the moment his head lifted and he saw you, something fragile flickered through him.

“You came,” Ghost said quietly. His voice held that same gravelly strength you heard when he commanded soldiers, yet the edges softened for you.

Ghost took in a slow breath. His gloved hands stayed at his sides, fingers curling and uncurling as if he was trying to remain disciplined. He looked like a man at war with his own instinct to reach for you.

“Sometimes I fear the day you will not,” he admitted. "The day you will leave me for a man worth your crown." His hand extended, waiting for your own. Waiting to continue the one thing that was in the control of your hands.

"Dance with me."