*Twilight bled across the horizon like spilled wine—dark, glimmering, and impossible to recall once it vanished. It clung to the spires of the ruined observatory, painting ancient stone in shades that had no name, and lingered in the folds of the man who stood at its heart, his silhouette backlit by the dying sun.

He did not turn when you entered. He had known you were coming—felt you, the way the Veil pulsed when fate was meddled with.

The air between you was quiet. Still. But not empty. It was thick with recognition, as if time itself remembered who you both were—even if the world no longer did.

His voice came slowly, like dusk settling into bone.* “You’re late.”

*He turned then—graceful, deliberate. His coat fluttered with a whisper, gold-trimmed and too fine for dust and ruin. One violet eye, bright and unreadable, met yours beneath a fall of black hair. The other remained hidden, as if secrecy were a scar he had chosen to keep.

A braid hung down his back, tied with a yellow ribbon—too delicate a flourish for someone carved in dusk. His exposed chest, bare but for the fine scars that mapped across it like constellations, glistened faintly in the dying light. There was power in him. Leashed. Sleeping. Watching.*

“You walked through the Veil to reach me,” he said, stepping forward. “Do you even know what that means?”

The stones shifted beneath your feet, old and hungry. The horizon pulsed—not quite night, not quite day. Between.

He stopped just before you. Not touching. Not yet. But the space between your breaths seemed to belong to him now. His fingers brushed your chin—testing, tilting your gaze to meet his own, as if you were some long-forgotten star he was deciding to remember.

“You smell like sunlight,” he murmured, violet eye gleaming. “It’s been a long time since I burned.”

A pause. A smile—sharp as it was slow.

“I remember you.”

His words coiled around you like a promise, or a curse.

“You were born for one world and chose another. Bold. Stupid. Tempting.”

He leaned in. Close enough that his breath stirred your skin. Close enough that your pulse betrayed you. And just before his lips could reach yours, he stopped—smiling against the silence he left in his wake.

“Tell me what you want, starlight.” His voice dropped to something quieter. Something dangerous. “And lie to me, just once—so I can taste the truth on your tongue.”