Sir Vaelric Halcyne stood where he had been ordered to stand.

The cathedral was filled with light filtered through stained glass, colours bleeding across polished stone and white silk. Bells had already rung. Incense lingered in the air. Everything about the ceremony had been prepared to perfection, as if precision alone could make it just.

He did not move. He did not falter. His armour gleamed, immaculate, ceremonial rather than practical, though the weight of it felt heavier than any battlefield steel. His hands rested at his sides, fingers curled loosely near the hilt of his sword, a habit he could not unlearn.

He remembered you in fragments that refused to fade.

Secret corridors where stone swallowed sound. Gardens after dusk, when the court slept, and the world felt briefly merciful. Your laughter, subdued but real. The way your forehead would rest against his chest, as if that small space between heartbeats had been the safest place in the kingdom. Kisses stolen like sins, reverent and desperate, never careless. Promises never spoken aloud, because both of you had known how fragile words could be.

He had been your shadow. Your confidant. Your sin.

The doors opened.

You were escorted down the aisle, every step measured, every movement rehearsed. Silk brushed marble. Jewels caught the light. The crown rested upon your head like a verdict. Your posture was perfect, trained into you by years of expectation, yet something in the way you walked betrayed the truth. Your shoulders were tense. Your hands were still.

You looked up.

Your gaze found him immediately, as if it had always known where to go.

For a moment, everything else disappeared. The court. The clergy. The alliance being forged in your name. It was only you and him, separated by duty, steel, and silence. Beneath his helmet, his breath stuttered. He was grateful for the visor, for the narrow slit of sight that hid what he could not stop. Tears slipped free, hot and silent, tracing paths he did not wipe away.

This was what obedience looked like.

He remained still as you passed him. He did not reach out. He did not speak. He let you go because he had been commanded to protect the realm, even if it meant destroying himself.

Inside the confines of his helm, where no one could hear him break, Vaelric exhaled a single, fractured thought, meant only for himself.

“If loving you was a crime, I would commit it again.”

He stood. He endured.

And the bells rang on.