The corridor to the room is short, but it stretches. Each step echoes, longer and colder than the last, as if Lionel’s words had leeched the warmth from the very stone. Gai walks with his hands jammed deep in his pockets, shoulders hunched against an invisible wind. The name—Myrkenna—bobs in his mind, buoyed by the raw, shivering current of everything it means. It’s a name, yes, but also a poison. He can’t un-know it, and he can’t wash it out of his mouth.

  At the corner, the noise changes. On the far side of the door, someone is pacing: a rhythmic, deliberate drag of heel, pause, another drag, as if they can’t decide whether to wear a rut through the carpet or just stand there and let themselves be devoured by the stillness. Gai stops with his hand on the latch and just listens for a moment.

  Inside, the air is thick with heat, cinnamon, and the static crackle of tension that never really settles. Elle has commandeered the farthest chair from the door, beside a small table—her blue gown too heavy for this small, stuffy space, shoulders squared as if holding up a city wall. Her hair, loose now, drapes in frazzled ropes over the collar. The faintest smear of dried blood still mars her knuckles, a dark whisper of yesterday's violence.

  She isn’t looking at anything in the room. Not the fire, not Raimondis (who’s stalking a rut near the coat-stand), and not Gai. Her eyes are fixed to the table’s grain, but every nerve is on alert, ready to swing up the instant he enters.

  Gai closes the door behind him, careful to turn the handle and let it click softly. For a second, he stands with his back pressed to it, chest tight from the tension that coils in the centre of this little universe. It’s so hot in here he wonders if the fireplace is enchanted—maybe some noble prank, or maybe just a silent reminder from the palace that it’s always cold outside, and always burning inside.

  Raimondis doesn’t stop his pacing, but he does pause when Gai enters, marking his territory like a cat forced into close quarters. His boots scuff a little harder, jaw locked tight. There are fresh lines at the edges of his eyes that weren’t there before. He meets Gai’s gaze for half a second, the look somewhere between a dare and a plea for relief.

  Gai wants to go straight to Elle, but the room is small, and there’s an etiquette to these things. He detours to the low table, pours himself a half cup of what passes for tea, and forces a sip. It scalds his tongue and tastes like boiled bitterness, but at least it gives him an excuse to fumble the cup, set it down, and have something to do with his hands.

  The moment stretches. Elle is waiting, and so is Gai, but neither wants to be the one who breaks the silence and lets the other see how badly they’re shaking inside. The room is so quiet that Gai can hear the settling of the heavy stone walls, the soft hiss of a log collapsing in the hearth, and the frantic, rhythmic pulse of his own blood in his temples.

  Then, suddenly: a knock. Not the kind of knock that expects an answer, but a coded, two-beat rap that says everything is about to shift. Gai doesn’t move, but he watches as Elle’s fingers tense around the rim of her cup, squeezing until the veins show dark against her skin.

  A staff woman steps in, eyes fixed low, hands clasped in a way that says she’d rather be anywhere else. “Master Raimondis? The General requests your presence, immediately.”

  The blond stops mid-pace. His face does a little contortion—amusement? disdain?—then snaps into a perfect mask. “Of course he does,” he says, and the words are airless. He fixes Elle with a short, meaningful look, then steps to the door, smoothing his hair as he goes.

  He pauses just before the threshold and gives Gai a quick once-over. “Don’t let her get up to trouble,” he says, with a brittle smirk that’s meant to pass for humor. Then he’s gone, and the door swings shut behind him, soundless as a secret.

  The absence is a physical thing. The room seems to swell, all the air displaced by Raimondis’s body now free to press in from every angle. Gai feels it in his sternum, in the prickle at the nape of his neck. He glances at Elle, but she hasn’t moved. The only sign of life is the slow rise and fall of her shoulders, her entire focus on the dark wood of the table.

  He stands there, waiting for a cue. None comes.

  The ghost of Sheh'zar is everywhere. Not literal—the room holds no traces of Drow incense, no flutter of black uniform in the mirror, no quick, surgical glance from the periphery—but it’s there anyway, haunting the way Elle holds her cup, the way she sits half-turned to the door as if expecting a lecture on posture or readiness. Gai imagines Sheh'zar in the corner, arms folded, taking stock of the situation, ready to offer a low, withering comment about the security of the premises or the lack of discipline in the younger generation.

  Gai finally sits, knees popping, and tries to collect himself.

  He wants to ask if Elle is all right, but the question feels worse than pointless, so he opts for quiet. He mirrors her—leans in, elbows to knees, and lets the silence do the work. They sit like this, two figures in a snow globe, the world outside faded to nothing.

  After a time, Elle speaks, but her voice is so low he almost misses it. “Did he believe you?” she asks, and for the first time since the attack, she looks up at Gai.

  He doesn’t pretend to misunderstand. “He didn’t have to,” Gai says. “He already knew. I think he always knew.” The words come out heavier than he means, but Elle doesn’t react. She only gives a tiny, tight nod, and the question hangs in the air, suspended between them like a sword.

  Her hands are shaking, just a little. Not the obvious tremor of terror, but a deeper, more insidious vibration that starts in the bones and works its way out, like she’s physically holding back a tide. Gai studies the lines of her fingers, the red imprints her nails have left in her palm, the way she keeps her wrists crossed like she’s afraid they might do violence if left to themselves.

  A log in the fireplace shifts, sending a scatter of embers up the throat of the chimney. The noise makes both of them jump, just enough to notice.

  Gai wants to fill the silence with something—anything—but the only words in his mind are ones he isn’t allowed to say. I’m scared too. I wish I could fix it.

  Instead, he says: “You did everything right.”

  Elle closes her eyes. When she opens them again, they are bloodshot, the gold gone flat in the muted light. “It doesn’t matter, Gai. It’s not about right or wrong. Not anymore.”

  She sets the cup down, the smallest click of porcelain on wood. Her fingers splay out, pressing against the grain, and he watches as she breathes through her nose, steadying herself. The effect is clinical, as if she’s dissecting her own grief under a lens and refusing to let it escape.

  The quiet grows thick, sticky. Gai can’t tell if she wants him to speak or just to sit here, keeping the ghosts at bay.

  He risks it. “There was nothing you could have done.” He waits for the slap, the rejection, the reminder of station and distance, but it doesn’t come.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  The silence is a living thing. It swells and stretches, growing denser with every breath until it presses hard enough to hurt. Gai thinks if he moves—even to reach for a glass or scratch an itch—he’ll shatter the illusion of composure they’re both so desperate to keep. He wonders if Elle is counting the seconds. If she’s cataloging the scrape of his boot on the rug, the awkward cutlery, the pattern of his hands wrapped around the cup. He wonders if she’s replaying the moment Sheh’zar fell, over and over, with every possible variation that could have kept her alive.

  At first, Gai is the one who cracks. Not with words, but with a breath that turns too ragged on the exhale. He presses a knuckle to the edge of his seat, looking not at Elle but at the warped reflection of the fire in the polished surface. The urge to reach out, to say anything comforting, is so powerful it nearly lifts his hand from the table. But he keeps still, and instead waits, hoping she’ll give him something—anger, tears, even an insult—anything he can anchor to.

  She doesn't. Her hands, steady a moment ago, start to tremble again. Her gaze, which had locked so fiercely on the grain, now glances off the table and ricochets up to the mantle, then across the room, then back to Gai’s face. For a long moment, she studies him. Not like a princess and a guard, or even friends—more like strangers forced to share the only dry spot in a storm. Her jaw flexes, and her lips pull thin and white.

  She lasts another ten seconds before the mask buckles. Her breath hitches, sharp, and the next one after that comes with a sound—a broken, stifled inhale, the kind a child makes when they realize they’re about to cry in front of someone who might use it against them. She makes a fist with one hand, knuckles creaking.

  Gai can’t take it. He stands up, slow, and circles the table, all the while expecting her to rebuke him or tell him to leave. She does neither. Instead, when he draws near, her fist goes to her mouth, and she lets out a small, strangled noise that almost sounds like laughter but isn’t.

  He stops a foot away, unsure if he’s supposed to kneel, or bow, or just stand there until she tells him what to do. But Elle surprises him. She rises with the suddenness of a thrown knife, stands toe-to-toe, and for the briefest moment he sees not a princess or even a girl, but a raw, hollowed-out animal, every nerve frayed and exposed.

  She doesn’t speak. She just leans forward, folds herself against his chest, and clutches him so hard he nearly gasps. The force is startling—Gai had always thought of her as poised, balanced on her own axis—but here she is, all collapsed gravity, holding on to him like he’s the last post in the flood. The top of her head fits under his chin, her arms locking around his ribs, fingers curled into the heavy wool of his tunic.

  He hesitates. For an instant, the lessons from Lionel—the reminders about boundaries, about always keeping a hand’s distance, about the penalties for “inappropriate contact”—flash in his mind. But then the ghost of Sheh'zar appears at his shoulder, not literally but in the way Elle’s grip is so much like the one Sheh'zar used to steady her, to guide her, to ground her. In that instant, every rule, every social structure, every thin veneer that separated them, vaporizes.

  Gai wraps his arms around her, slow and careful, like he’s afraid he might hurt her with too much force. He tries to keep it gentle, but Elle shakes with the kind of grief that wants to tear something apart, and so he lets her have it. He holds her tight, chest to chest, as she breaks down.

  The first sob is silent, but the next is not. She buries her face in his shoulder and lets out a sound that is too ugly to be called a cry—more like a gasp, or a retch, as if her whole body is trying to empty itself of something toxic. Her hands knot in his shirt, pulling so hard the fabric strains. Her tears are scalding through the cloth, soaking him to the skin.

  He holds her, hands splayed across her back, fingers digging into the thick hair that runs down her spine. Every instinct tells him to hush her, to say it’s going to be okay, but he knows that’s a lie. So he says nothing, just rocks her in place, a slow, uncertain rhythm, as if motion might keep the rest of the world at bay.

  She shakes for a long time—minutes, maybe longer. With each wave, the force lessens, the sobs get smaller, the grip on his shirt relaxes. But she doesn’t let go. Even after she’s done, even after her breathing evens out and the tears dry to sticky tracks on his neck, she stays pressed to him, head tucked in the hollow of his collar.

  He feels every inch of her against him: the heat of her cheek, the wet of her breath, the flutter of her heart under the blue velvet. He could stand here for a century, or a second, and it would feel the same.

  The room is full of the ghost of Sheh’zar. It’s in the way Elle’s thumb rubs a small circle over the seam of his sleeve—a tic he had seen Sheh’zar perform when deep in thought. It is in the scent of Elle’s hair, which still carries a trace of the expensive drow incense Sheh’zar always wore. Even the shape of Elle’s hands, smaller but possessed of the same potential for lethal strength, reminds Gai of the woman who could level a knife at a traitor's throat as easily as she pinned a letter. All of it is here, and all of it is now lost.

  Gai is suddenly, acutely aware of his own desire—not just the reflex to be her shield, but the deeper, secret longing to hold her like this forever. He wants to run his fingers through her hair, wants to kiss her scalp, wants to tell her she’s safe, even though he knows she never will be again.

  He settles for just being solid. He sets his chin lightly atop her head, closes his eyes, and lets the moment be what it is.

  After a long time, she pulls back. Not all the way—her hands are still on his chest—but enough to look up at him. Her eyes are rimmed in red, the gold brighter for the contrast, her lips parted in a line that could break either way. She doesn’t speak, but she doesn’t have to. Everything she’s feeling is right there, clear as if she’d spoken it aloud.

  He wants to ask what she needs, but again, the question is pointless.

  She wipes her face on his shirt, then offers a tiny, embarrassed snort. “Sorry,” she says, and the word is so small he almost misses it.

  He shakes his head, reaches up, and brushes a strand of hair from her cheek. “You don’t ever have to apologize. Not to me.”

  They stand like that, close but not touching, for a long moment. The ghosts fade a little, pushed to the corners by the heaviness of their breathing.

  At last, Elle draws a shaky breath, composes herself, and smooths her hands down the front of her dress. “Thank you,” she says. This time, she meets his eyes, and he sees a resolve in them he recognizes: the will to keep going, to survive, no matter what it costs.

  He nods. There’s nothing else he can do.

  A distant footstep in the corridor breaks the spell. Seconds after, the door cracks open and Raimondis glides in, not so much walking as reasserting the claim of the old world on this raw, unfinished moment. He’s regained his composure—hair perfect, lapel crisp, but the color is high on his cheeks, and his eyes are quick, clocking the distance between Elle and Gai with a single, practiced flick. The air in the room freezes, every molecule reverting to the chemical arrangement of royalty, servitude, and old hierarchies.

  Elle recoils—nothing dramatic, just a straightening of the spine, the quick brush of a sleeve across her cheek to erase any hint of vulnerability. Her hands return to a polite fold in her lap. Gai steps back, careful and slow, resuming the stance of guard rather than anchor. The loss of contact is immediate, like stepping away from a fire and letting the cold in.

  Raimondis’s eye-roll is so subtle it would be invisible to anyone who didn’t know him, but to Gai it lands with the force of a thrown knife. The blond circles to his preferred chair, dropping into it with a sigh that is equal parts boredom and pointed irritation.

  “Well,” Raimondis says, “did we find catharsis in the tea set?” He directs it at the table, but the edge is for Elle. When she doesn’t respond, he slouches a little, one leg hooked over the arm of the chair, and stares at Gai with all the patience of a cat about to torment a bird.

  The pause blooms. Gai feels his mouth go dry, feels the words catch and tumble in his throat. There’s no option but to report.

  “Lionel believes the attack was deliberate. Surgical. Designed to break more than bodies.” Gai’s own voice sounds strange in his ears—hollow, echoing, not like himself at all. “He wants us on lockdown until the arrests have been made. No unnecessary contact. All leads go through him.”

  Raimondis snorts. “Of course. The new General runs the old playbook. But I suppose it’s better than the panic on the street.” He lobs this toward Elle, inviting her to join the performance.

  Elle ignores him. Instead, she fixes Gai with a look: patient, dangerous, inviting him to finish.

  He swallows. “I told him about the Animatrix. The—Myrkenna.” The name lingers on his tongue like a sliver of bone.

  This time, Elle reacts. Not a flinch, not even a blink, but the temperature in the room shifts. The blue of her robe seems darker, the veins at her temple more visible. She’s silent for a long moment.

  Raimondis whistles, soft. “You gave him the name,” he says. “Well, well.”

  Elle speaks at last. “You think he’ll stop her? That he’ll get there before I do?”

  Gai opens his mouth, then closes it. There’s no answer that doesn’t sound like a betrayal.

  Raimondis pushes off from the chair, the movement abrupt. “She’s not angry you named her. She’s angry you took the hunt from her.” He says it with the satisfaction of someone who’s figured out the twist in a book before the others.

  Elle doesn’t deny it. “You’re right,” she says, the words so cold they should frost the glass. “I wanted to be the one.”

  The silence that follows is sharper than any insult. Gai can’t bear it. He says, “What was I supposed to do? Lie to him? Hide it? My father—he’s not a man you trick twice.”

  Elle stares at the fire, her face empty. “No one asked you to lie. I just wanted—” She clamps her lips shut, breathes slow. “I wanted the justice to be mine.”

  Raimondis rolls his eyes again, this time less subtle. “Lovely,” he mutters, “maybe next time we’ll get lucky and she’ll come for us all at once. Wouldn’t that be a simpler solution?”

  Elle ignores him, but Gai can’t. “You think this is a joke?” he snaps, and the words spill too fast. “She butchered half a wing of guards. Sheh’zar—” The name dies, stuck to the roof of his mouth.

  For a moment, all three seem to be studying the same point on the rug.

  Raimondis, for his part, relents a bit. “Not a joke. Just tired of waiting to die in some clever way.”

  Elle’s next words are for Gai alone. “Did you see her? Myrkenna?”

  He shakes his head, once. “Only the aftermath. The signature. It was like… a thumb pressed into the world’s eye. The same as Old Town.” He can’t stop his own voice from trembling. “She was there, Elle. I felt it.”

  For the first time, something like pity creeps into her face. “I’m sorry,” she says, quietly. “You shouldn’t have had to see that again.”

  Gai shrugs, but the movement is hollow. “It’s nothing. I’ve seen worse.” He’s not even sure that’s true.

  Raimondis stands, restless. “I think we’re done, yes? The next step is wait for Lionel’s orders and hope we’re not in the first wave of ‘acceptable losses.’” He glances at Elle, and in the flash of eye contact there’s a whole conversation, a volley of meaning neither wants to voice.

  She doesn’t answer. Instead, she pours herself another cup of tea and sips it in silence.

  Gai feels the new distance, the sudden gulf between what had almost been and what now is. He wants to apologize, to fix something, but knows that the apology will only make it worse.

  The fire burns down, snapping once, then settling into a dull orange glow. The air thickens with the kind of fatigue that isn’t cured by sleep. Gai slumps, finally, and lets himself feel the exhaustion in every joint.

  For a while, nobody says a word. Raimondis paces the perimetre. Elle sits, her gaze lost in the middle distance. Gai just rests his head in his hands.