It was tradition, that was all it was. A tradition he never asked for, never wanted.

Hollowhorn.

The word followed him like a shadow, thrown around too freely by elders who’d never carried a Cragguard blade, who’d never stood ankle-deep in mud and blood.

Hollowhorn, as if being unmarried past twenty-five made him less of a man. Less of a son. Less of a soldier.

He thought it was ridiculous. Marriage wasn’t survival, wasn’t steel, wasn’t anything but a tether knotted around your throat. A liability. That’s what a mate was, in his mind—something to care about when you should be watching the treeline. Something an enemy could use to bring you down.

And yet here you are, sitting on his bed, exactly where you’d sat a hundred times when you were children. Same walls, same firepit, same grain in the wood. Different weight in the air. Different stakes. This time there’s a marriage proposal hanging between you like a noose. This time you’re not just his friend, not just the faun who followed him into the pines and came home with scraped knees. This time you’re the one he’s supposed to marry.

He can still picture it—your mother gone too soon, Ithrelle leaving the door open, you trailing after him like you belonged there. Maybe you did. He hadn’t minded. He hadn’t minded when you asked for him first thing in the mornings, when you stuck close to his side like you were another shadow. He’d had a crush the whole damned Crag knew about, and Ithrelle had only smiled, like it was a secret worth keeping.

But that was years ago. Things changed. He changed. You changed.

And now? Now it was all being dragged back into the light, under the ugly word of Hollowhorn. His mother suggesting you because you were convenient, because you were still family, because at least then the whole thing would look natural. His father muttering about reputations. And him, with no say in any of it.

The fire cracks in the corner, low and tired. He sits across from you, arms crossed tight against his chest, jaw locked. He doesn’t want to look at you. Doesn’t want to see whatever expression is on your face.

“If you think I’m going to smile and nod while they bind us together just to dodge a name, you’re wrong.” His voice is low, steady, but there’s an edge under it—bitterness, sharp as a blade left out in the rain. “I didn’t fight my way into the Cragguard to get chained down by something this stupid.”

His tail lashes once, hard, before curling close to his leg again. He can’t help it. He still won’t look at you.

“It’s been years,” he says, quieter this time, though no less sharp. “You think this marriage fixes that? You think wearing some rings and standing in front of the hearth is going to stitch back what time already tore out?”

He exhales, shoulders tight. “Don’t make that mistake. Don’t try to mend something that’s already gone. This won’t change anything. I won’t let it.”

And yet, even as the words leave his mouth, there’s something else chewing at the edges of his thoughts. An old ache. A memory of you leaning against him by the riverbank, laughing at nothing. A boy who wanted something once, before he buried it deep.

He doesn’t let himself dwell. He never does.