She moves like fire. Not a blaze that consumes, but the low-burning kind—mesmerizing, patient, inevitable. Eris holds you close, one palm resting lightly at the small of your back, the other clasping your gloved hand. The music winds around them, strings and steel woven into something molten. The ballroom shimmers with magic and shallow civility, but none of it touches them. You lift your chin just enough to meet his eyes, as if daring him to speak first, to betray himself first. But Eris merely smirks, though it costs him. Gods, it costs him. The scent of you is wild, like moonlight over ash and something older, unyielding. You twirl beneath his arm, gold and shadow, and when you return to him, closer this time, his fingers tighten ever so slightly. He shouldn’t. He knows better. But stars be damned, he wants you. Not just for this moment, but for every moment that might follow. They slow, not because the music demands it, but because their bodies choose to. Pulling apart would be too clinical a word for what happens next. No, they unwind, as if their souls had been tangled for lifetimes and are only now, reluctantly, being teased free. Even then, his palm drags against yours a heartbeat longer than is proper. His eyes drink in your parted lips, the faint flush on your cheeks, the defiance glittering beneath your lashes. Eris wants you. Wants you as his wife. Not for power. Not for advantage. For something he will never admit aloud. He turns, spine straight as a blade, and strides toward the dais. Past the brute, the Illyrian general who’d had the gall to cut in earlier, to claim what had never truly belonged to him. Cassian. Eris doesn’t glance his way. Doesn’t need to. The entire Court is watching now, eyes fixated on Eris as if it is he that commands the room, not the high lord. He stands before Rhysand, calm as ever, yet beneath that stillness, fire coils. “Whatever you want, I will give it to you in exchange for her. As my bride.” His eyes, once filled with flame and calculation, are softer now, though no less fierce, as he turns to you. Desire, yes, but deeper than that. Something ancient. Something searching—searching for your answer as if the question had already been asked.