Clorinde closed the front door behind her with deliberate softness, the latch clicking like a warning shot in the quiet house.

  She removed her shoes, set them neatly on the mat, and straightened. The twill fabric of her uniform still carried the faint warmth of Wriothesley’s hands at her waist, the ghost of his lips on hers. She could still taste mint tea and something darker, something that had made her knees tremble. For one reckless moment she had forgotten everything else.

  That moment ended the instant she stepped into the parlor.

  The entryway lamp shone bright, casting long shadows across polished wood and family portraits that had never smiled. The lamp in the hallway had been left burning, deliberately. Her father never wasted light unless he was waiting. She removed her shoes, set them neatly by the door, and straightened—bracing herself.

  Her father was waiting in the sitting room.

  Captain étienne—retired now, but the title still clung to him like gunpowder smoke—sat in his high-backed chair, hands folded over the cane resting across his knees. His uniform jacket, pressed and perfect even in retirement, hung on the wall behind him like a silent accusation. Gray streaked his once-dark hair; lines carved deeper around his mouth. He had aged into severity rather than softness.

  He didn’t rise when she entered.

  “You’re late,” he said. Flat. Controlled.

  “The parade ran long.” She kept her voice even. “Security details.”

  His gaze flicked to her movements, unfamiliar, too soft for the daughter he had raised alone. Then to her lips, still faintly swollen. Then to the faint mark on her neck where Wriothesley’s thumb had lingered hours earlier.

  “I saw what you did,” he said.

  Clorinde’s stomach clenched.

  étienne had never been warm. When his wife died giving birth to Clorinde—hemorrhage too fast, too final—he had looked at the infant in the cradle and felt only absence. Grief had hardened into resentment; resentment into distance. He raised her the only way he knew: strict schedules, relentless supervision, and even constant correction. Love was a luxury he could not afford to give the child who had cost him his wife. So he gave her discipline instead.

  Clorinde learned early that affection was unreliable. She learned to rely on herself.

  That was why, at eight years old, she had wandered into the peculiar alley behind the Court—seeking solitude, escape, anything but the cold silence of home. That was where she met Wriothesley: a scrappy, hungry boy who looked at her like she was worth something simply because she existed.

  Her father had known about the friendship. He had seen the dirt on her dresses, the faint bruises from playful spars, the way she came home later and later. He had said nothing—perhaps because he didn’t care enough to intervene, perhaps because he assumed it would burn itself out.

  Now he cared.

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  ”I know who was that you were with.” Clorinde’s eyes widened but she didn’t say anything.

  “I just caught you kissing a murderer,” he said quietly.

  “He’s not—” Clorinde started.

  “I heard he killed his own adoptive parents. Confessed and was sentenced. His Duke title is just a political convenience, nothing more. You are the Champion Duelist. Lady Furina’s personal guard. A decorated officer of Fontaine. And you would throw that away for a former convict?”

  Clorinde’s hands clenched at her sides. “You knew about him years ago. You saw us together in the alleys. You never said a word then.”

  “I thought it was childish rebellion. A phase. I never imagined you would—” His voice cracked on the last word. “—throw yourself away on him.”

  “I’m not throwing anything away,” she said, voice low and fierce. “I’m finally choosing something for myself. The only thing I’ve ever truly wanted.”

  étienne’s knuckles whitened on his cane.

  “I will not give my daughter to a man with blood on his hands. No matter his position now.”

  Clorinde stepped forward—slow, but steady.

  “Then you should have loved me enough to care what I wanted when I was a child,” she said quietly. “Instead you left me to raise myself. Petronilla tried—he was the only one who ever treated me like I mattered. And then he disappeared too. I trained alone. I fought alone. I became the Champion alone. And the one person who never once made me feel like I had to earn his regard was Wriothesley. He saw me when no one else did. He still does.”

  étienne’s face hardened.

  “You think love erases murder?”

  “I think justice already weighed his actions,” she answered. “The Oratrice has cleared him of his crimes. Monsieur Neuvillette even signed the pardon. If Fontaine’s own system can forgive, why can’t you?”

  Silence stretched—sharp, brittle.

  “You will end this,” he said at last. “Or you will choose between him and your family.”

  Clorinde looked at him—really looked—and saw the man who had never once held her when she cried, never once told her she was enough.

  “I already chose,” she said softly. “Years ago. In an alley. When I gave a hungry boy half my bread and he looked at me like I’d given him the world.”

  She turned and walked upstairs.

  The argument echoed behind her, unresolved.

  Meanwhile, beneath the waves, Wriothesley was still floating.

  He had returned to Meropide in a daze—head full of her taste, her scent, the way she had kissed him first like she was claiming something she had waited seven years to claim. His skin still burned where she had touched him. His lips still tingled. Every time he closed his eyes he saw her beautiful face, violet eyes glassy with emotion, the shy nod before she rose on her toes.

  He didn’t make it back to his office without collateral damage.

  Trees along the path to the checkpoint suffered again—poor, innocent bark splintered under uncontrolled fists. He punched one trunk so hard his knuckles reopened; another he simply shoved, sending it swaying. By the time he reached the elevator his breathing was ragged, his coat torn at the sleeve, his mind a riot of want and wonder.

  Sigewinne met him at the infirmary door, took one look at his split knuckles and dazed expression, and sighed.

  “Did you get to see her?”

  He nodded mutely.

  “I see. Did you destroy innocent foliage again?”

  Another shameless nod.

  She guided him to a chair, began cleaning the cuts with gentle efficiency.

  “You’re allowed to feel this,” she said quietly. “You’re allowed to want her. You’re allowed to be happy. But don’t let innocent trees suffer.”

  He stared at the wall.

  “I don’t know how,” he admitted.

  Sigewinne patted his hand.

  “Then learn. Take it slow. With her.”

  Up above, Clorinde sat on the edge of her bed, fingers pressed to her lips, replaying the goodbye kiss in perfect, aching detail.

  Down below, Wriothesley stared at a single mint leaf and allowed himself—for the first time—to imagine a future that included her in it.

  Both of them carried the same burning truth:

  They had finally spoken without words.

  And now the real work—the terrifying, beautiful work—of building something lasting could begin.

  But shadows lingered.

  A father’s disapproval.

  A daughter’s resolve.

  And the quiet certainty that love, once awakened, did not retreat easily.

  The conflict had only just begun.