#eris smut

You had been sitting alone in the gardens for nearly an hour.

Servants passed every so often along the stone paths, arms full of linens or baskets of late autumn herbs clipped from the kitchen beds. None of them stopped. None of them spoke. They offered the appropriate bow of their heads as they passed, the kind owed to the wife of the High Lord’s heir, but their eyes never lingered long enough to become concern.

You ignored them as thoroughly as they ignored you.

It was easier that way.

The morning had begun well enough, if such a thing could be said of any morning inside the Forest House. You had taken breakfast in your solar. You had even opened one of the books Eris had left on the side table two nights ago, though he had not said it was for you.

For a few hours, the day had almost felt peaceful.

Then Aven had found you.

You still did not know what had set him off. With your brother, it rarely required much. A servant too slow with his tea. A courtier’s tone. A perceived slight from Beron. A door left half-shut when he preferred it open.

Today, it may have been Colin.

The young sentry stationed outside your chambers had nearly stopped Aven from entering. Not forcefully or rudely. Merely a hand lifted, a polite reminder that Lord Eris had instructed all visitors to be announced before entering your private rooms.

Aven had only smiled at him, the first warning. The second had been the way his eyes found yours the moment he stepped inside. You had risen quickly, had tried to smooth the situation before it could become something worse. It had not mattered.

Aven had crossed the room in three strides and struck you hard enough that your head snapped to the side. Pain bloomed across your cheek, hot and bright. Before you could properly regain your footing, his hand closed around your arm and shoved you to the floor.

You had stayed there, it was what he wanted most of the time. Not argument, explanation, or even apology. Though he often demanded those too. He wanted you low, wanted you looking down.

So you had kept your gaze on the carpet while his voice filled the solar, sharp with disgust. Names and insults spilled from his mouth, each one familiar enough that they almost lost meaning. Ungrateful. Useless. Weak. Stupid girl. Spoiled girl. Pathetic girl.

You had said nothing in response. Saying nothing did not always save you, but it usually shortened the storm.

When he finally left, you had remained on the floor long after the door shut behind him. Your palms pressed into the carpet, your breathing shallow. Your cheek throbbing with every beat of your heart. For a while, you had cried. Only enough to release the worst of it before forcing the tears back where they belonged.

Then you had gathered yourself, risen on unsteady legs, and left the room because you could not remain inside it anymore. Not with his anger still clinging to the walls. Not with the overturned book near the chair, or the faint scrape on the floor where your body had landed.

Colin had been standing outside when you emerged.

His eyes had gone immediately to your face.

“Lady Y/N—”

“I am going to the gardens,” you had said quickly, shutting the door behind you. “I wish to be alone.”

You had not waited to see whether he would obey. You had simply walked away, each step measured, your spine straight, your cheek burning. He had not followed. You suspected he was still at your chamber door now, uncertain whether abandoning his post or disobeying your wishes would anger Eris more.

Now, you sat on one of the stone benches tucked beneath a maple whose leaves had turned deep copper and red. The wind moved gently through the garden, cool against the side of your face. The seasons were shifting. Winter approached, though Autumn never changed as obviously as other courts. The summers warmed, the winters cooled. But the land always seemed to hover in some endless state of gold and rust.

A pretty cage, you thought.

Then immediately hated yourself for thinking it.

You were not supposed to complain, not really. The Forest House was not Ebonforest. The servants did not watch you with the same tense pity as the ones back home. No one rushed to anticipate your moods here, but no one hovered anxiously either. No one looked at you as if they were waiting for the next disaster. No one whispered warnings in corridors after Aven had passed through.

You were married now. You had been given a titl, fine gowns, a solar. A bedchamber Eris had told you was yours. Still, most days, you felt like a ghost haunting another family’s house.

Eris was not cruel. That alone should have been enough to make you grateful. It was better than what you had feared on your wedding night. Better than what Aven had prepared you for. Better than the life you had thought you were being handed into.

But better was not the same as belonging.

Three months into your marriage, Eris remained a stranger in most of the ways that mattered. A stranger who left books for you without comment, ordered warm water for your baths after discovering what Aven had done, and made certain you ate properly without ever acknowledging he was watching. A stranger who had not touched you since your wedding night except when necessity demanded it. A stranger who still avoided your bed as though the space between you had been carved by law.

You could not even decide whether his distance relieved or wounded you. Some nights, it was a mercy. Other nights, when the Forest House settled into silence and there was nothing between you and your thoughts, tears stained your pillows before you could stop them.

Eris had told you the bedroom was yours. He had said you could decide who entered and who did not. But you had not been able to refuse Aven. You never could. He was your brother. Your only family, or at least the only family you could remember with any clarity. He had raised you after your parents were gone. Protected you, once. Taken care of you, once. There had been years when his hand on your shoulder meant comfort and not warning.

Then he had turned sixteen and begun truly ruling over Ebonforest. Everything had changed after that. He became colder, more easily angered. He began speaking to you as though you were another resource of the territory, something to be managed and positioned properly. A piece of the family legacy that had failed to understand its purpose.

You still did not know what you had done to make him resent you. Perhaps nothing, perhaps your existence had been enough. Your throat tightened.

You had thought it would be better by now. Hadn’t he gotten what he wanted? He had married you into the Autumn Court’s most powerful family. He had restored their name. He had shoved you directly into the path of Beron’s heir and expected history to reward him for it. On the day of your wedding, he had smiled while fastening the final clasp of your necklace and told you that men would one day write that his rise to true power began with your marriage.

His rise, not yours.

You blinked hard as your eyes began to sting.

You had done everything he asked, everything he demanded. Mother above, you had even offered yourself to Eris on your wedding night because Aven had convinced you it was necessary. Because he had told you a wife who failed to please her husband could ruin everything. Because you had been so frightened of failing before the marriage had even begun that you had nearly shattered trying to be useful.

And still, Aven was not satisfied. Nothing you did was ever enough. A tear slipped free before you could catch it. You quickly wiped it away with the heel of your hand.

“What are you doing out here?”

You went still. The voice came from behind you, cool and familiar enough that your body reacted before your mind did. You rose quickly, turning toward him as you lowered into a small curtsy.

“Lord Eris.”

Eris stood at the edge of the path, dressed in deep green and black, his copper hair loose around his face. He looked as he always did: immaculate, composed. His gaze moved over you. You felt the moment he noticed your cheek.

“I was just enjoying the weather,” you said.

His eyes lifted back to yours. “Alone?”

“Yes.”

“Where is Colin?”

You clasped your hands before you to hide the faint tremor in your fingers. You glanced toward the fountain at the center of the garden, watching the water spill endlessly over dark stone.

“I wanted to come to the gardens alone.” 

Eris said nothing. The silence made you look back at him. His expression remained controlled, but his eyes had sharpened. 

“Did he obey you?”

You did not understand the question at first. “Yes.”

“Good.” That startled you enough that you blinked.

Eris noticed. Of course he did.

“I told Colin to guard your door,” he said. “Not to make himself your jailer.”

You did not know what to say to that. He stepped closer, stopping several feet away. His gaze flicked to your cheek again, and this time, you turned your face before you could stop yourself.

Too late.

“Did you fall?” he asked.

Your stomach tightened. The lie was there, ready and familiar.

Yes, I was careless. I tripped. I hit the side of the table. You had said such things so many times that the words almost rose without thought. But Eris was watching you too carefully, and after the bath, after that terrible evening when he had found you shivering and humiliated and unable to understand why warm water had been given freely, lying to him felt strangely exhausting.

“No,” you said.

His face stilled. One word, that was all it took. You expected questions, demands, a sharper tone. Instead, Eris looked away for a moment, his jaw shifting as though he were pressing his teeth together hard enough to hurt.

“Aven?”

You lowered your gaze. That in itself was answer enough. Heat rippled through the air. Not from the sun, but from him. You looked up sharply. Eris’s expression had not changed, but the magic around him had. It pulsed once, barely restrained, licking through the garden like an invisible flame. 

“Did Colin attempt to stop him?” Eris asked.

“Yes.”

“And Aven entered anyway.”

“He is my brother.” The words came out fast. Eris’s eyes cut to yours. You regretted them immediately, though you did not know why. It was not a defense, not really. 

“I do not want more trouble,” you said.

Eris watched you for another long moment. Then, with visible effort, the heat in the air lessened. He did not step closer. Did not reach for your face. Did not ask to see the mark more clearly. Some strange, distant part of you wondered whether that restraint was kindness or disgust.

“You have been sitting here long?” he asked.

“Not very.”

“A lie.” Your eyes snapped to his. One corner of his mouth lifted, but there was no humor in it. “A poor one.”

You looked away again. The wind stirred the leaves above you. One fell between you, spinning lazily before landing on the stone path.

Eris’s gaze followed it.

Then he said, “Walk with me.”

Your body tensed before you could hide it. “With you?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“Through the gardens.” You did not move.

Eris’s eyes returned to you. He seemed to realize then how the offer had sounded. Like a command, an expectation.

His voice changed slightly when he spoke again. “Only if you wish to.”

That small adjustment did something strange to your chest. You should have declined. You wanted to remain alone. Or at least you thought you did. But the thought of returning to your solar, to the room where Aven’s voice still lingered, made nausea twist inside you.

So you nodded. “All right.”

Eris inclined his head and turned, giving you the choice to fall into step beside him rather than behind him. It took you a moment to understand that was what he had done. You moved carefully to his side and the two of you walked in silence.

The gardens were quieter at this hour, the sunlight pale through the canopy of orange and red leaves. The paths wound between beds of late-blooming flowers, their colors deeper than anything that had grown in Ebonforest. Gold, crimson, burnt amber. Clusters of dark berries clung to twisting vines along the stone walls.

Your hands remained clasped in front of you.

“You are allowed to relax your hands,” he said.

You frowned at the path ahead. “They are relaxed.”

“You are strangling your own fingers.” You immediately loosened them.

His mouth pressed into a thin line, as though he regretted saying anything.

“I did not mean you had to correct it.”

“You mentioned it.”

“Yes,” he said dryly. “I am beginning to see the danger in that.”

Despite yourself, a faint breath escaped you. It was not quite a laugh, but close enough that Eris glanced sideways. You smoothed your expression quickly. His gaze lingered for only a moment before returning to the path.

The silence that followed was less uncomfortable.

You walked past the fountain, then beyond the formal garden beds, toward the wilder edges of the estate. The paths became narrower there, less polished. Moss crept between the stones. The trees grew closer together, their branches forming a canopy overhead.

You should have asked where he was taking you.

Eventually, a sound reached you. Low at first, a bark. Then another.

Your steps slowed, Eris noticed but did not stop.

“What is that?”

“The hounds.” You looked toward him. He continued down the path as though the answer required no explanation.

You had heard them before, of course, distantly. At night sometimes, when the wind carried their calls across the estate. You had seen Clover once or twice from afar, always at Eris’s side, gray and sleek and unsettlingly intelligent. But you had never been near the kennels.

“The smokehounds?” you asked.

“The smokehounds, yes.” he confirmed.

Your mouth went dry. “Why are we going to them?”

“You were sitting alone in the gardens looking as though you might disappear into the bench if left there long enough.”

You blinked.

Eris glanced at you, his expression unreadable. “They are better company than most of the court.”

Another bark sounded, closer this time, followed by the scrape of claws against stone and wood.

Your heart began to beat faster. “I have never met one before. Are they dangerous?”

“Yes.” You stopped walking. Eris took two more steps before turning back.

You stared at him.

He sighed faintly. “Not to you, if you listen to me.”

“That is not as comforting as I think you intended it to be.”

Eris watched the debate play across your face. “You do not have to approach them.”

“But you brought me here.”

“I brought you to see them.” He looked beyond you toward the kennels, then back. “Not to force you into anything.”

That distinction settled somewhere uneasy inside you. 

Not to force you into anything.

Aven was always forcing you to do something, to prove something.  Your usefulness, your obedience. Your silence, your ability to endure humiliation without letting it show.

You looked past Eris.

The path opened ahead into a wide enclosed training yard bordered by tall iron fencing and old stone. Beyond it stood the kennels, though calling them kennels felt almost insulting. They were larger and finer than some lesser nobles’ homes, built from dark polished wood and ironwork, each run spacious enough for the enormous beasts housed within.

Twelve hounds occupied the area. All twelve lifted their heads when you and Eris entered the clearing. You forgot how to breathe. They were magnificent.

Gray and sleek as smoke, with lean bodies built for speed and power. Their coats shimmered strangely when they moved, as though shadow and mist lived beneath the fur. Some stood nearly to your waist, others were larger. Their eyes gleamed with unsettling intelligence, every head turning toward Eris first, then toward you.

The yard went utterly still.

You took one instinctive step back.

“Do not run,” he said.

“I was not going to.” Another poor lie.

His eyes flicked briefly toward you. “Breathe, slowly.”

You tried. One of the hounds nearest the fence rose to its full height. Another stepped forward, nostrils flaring.

“They can smell everything.” Eris said.

You swallowed.

Eris stepped to the gate and unlatched it.

Your pulse jumped. “You are opening it?”

“Yes.”

“All twelve are in there.”

“Yes.”

“Eris.” At the sharpness in your voice, he paused. For a moment, he only looked at you. Then he closed the latch again.

You stared at the gate. He had stopped, just because you sounded afraid. You hated how close that brought you to tears.

Eris turned fully toward you. “We can remain outside the fence.”

“I did not say I was frightened.”

“You did not have to.” Heat crawled up your neck. He did not smile, did not mock you. Did not try to point out the obvious again. Instead, he turned toward the hounds and gave a low whistle. The change was immediate. Several hounds surged forward, tails moving, bodies alive with sudden energy. They pressed against the fence, eager and restrained only by training. Their attention fixed on Eris with unmistakable devotion.

All but one.

A larger smokehound remained at the center of the yard. She had been lying in a patch of weak sunlight, long body stretched across the ground as if the world moved according to her patience. At Eris’s whistle, she lifted her head but did not rush forward.

Her eyes found you.

Not Eris.

You.

A shiver moved over your skin.

Eris followed your gaze.

“That is Clover,” he said.

“Is she the alpha?”

“Yes.” Clover rose.

The other hounds shifted around her immediately, parting without instruction. She moved with a smooth, silent grace that made the air seem to alter around her. There was no excitement in her approach. She crossed the yard and stopped directly opposite you, the iron fence between your bodies.

You held very still. Clover lowered her nose to the bars and inhaled. Once, twice. Her pale eyes remained on yours. You did not know what she smelled on you. Fear, certainly. Aven’s hand on your skin. Salt from the tears you had failed to wipe away completely. Eris’s household. Whatever it was, Clover studied you for a long moment.

Then she sat, right in front of you.

Eris went still beside you.

You glanced at him nervously. “Is that bad?”

“No.” But he sounded…strange.

You looked back at Clover. The smokehound’s tail swept once over the ground. A soft laugh escaped you before you could stop it. It broke halfway through, too fragile to be joy and too surprised to be anything else.

“Hello,” you whispered.

Clover’s ears twitched. You slowly lifted one hand.

Eris’s voice came quietly beside you. “Let her come to you.”

You froze. Clover watched your hand, then rose again and stepped closer to the fence. She pushed her muzzle between the bars, not enough to strain herself, but enough that her nose brushed against your knuckles.

Her fur was softer than you expected. You exhaled shakily as Clover pressed closer. Your fingers unfolded slowly, gliding along the smooth bridge of her nose and up between her ears. The hound’s eyes half-closed.

Behind her, the other smokehounds had gone very still. Watching, waiting. You swallowed around the tightness in your throat.

“She is beautiful,” you said.

Eris did not answer immediately. When you glanced at him, you found him watching you, not Clover. Something unreadable moved across his face before he looked away.

“She does not usually approach strangers.”

You almost pulled your hand back.

Clover nudged you again, as if annoyed by the thought.

“I am a stranger?”

“To them,” Eris said. Then, after a pause, “To most here.”

You looked down. The truth of it should not have hurt. You already knew it. Still, hearing it spoken aloud opened some tender place inside you. Eris was silent for a moment, but then he reached for the gate again. This time, he did not open it. He looked to you first. You understood the unspoken question.

Your fingers remained buried in Clover’s fur. The hound’s warmth seeped into your hand. You were still frightened, but not as much as before.

“All right,” you whispered.

Eris opened the gate.

The hinges made a soft groan. None of the hounds moved until Eris gave a quiet command in a language you did not recognize. Even then, only Clover stepped through. She emerged onto the path and circled you once.

You stood frozen, every instinct screaming at you not to make a mistake. Clover sniffed the hem of your gown, the sleeve of your dress, the hand still trembling at your side. Then she pressed her head against your hip.

A breath left you. Your hand settled over her head. Clover leaned more of her weight against you. Eris stood a few feet away, watching with the wary attention of a male observing something rare and not entirely understood.

“She chose you,” he said.

You looked at him. “What does that mean?”

His gaze moved to Clover, then back to you.

“With her?” His voice was low. “A great deal.”

The words should not have meant anything, and yet they did. You looked down at the smokehound pressed against your side and felt, for the first time since entering the Forest House, that something within its walls had reached for you without wanting anything in return.

Not obedience, not usefulness, not silence. Just you.

Your vision blurred. You turned your face quickly, but Eris had already seen. Of course he had. He did not comment. He simply looked toward the other hounds and gave another quiet command. One by one, they came forward.

Not rushing. Not overwhelming. Each stopped a respectful distance away before inching closer, noses working, tails stirring cautiously. Clover remained at your side like a queen granting permission.

A younger hound, smaller than the rest but already broad through the chest, crept nearest.

“That is Onyx,” Eris said.

Onyx stretched his neck toward your free hand. This time, you did not wait for instruction. You let him sniff your fingers, then brushed them over his head. His tail immediately began to move.

A laugh escaped you, a real one. Small and watery, but real. Onyx pushed closer, shameless now that Clover had declared you acceptable. Another hound nosed at your sleeve. A third sat near your feet. Within minutes, you stood in the middle of the path with smokehounds surrounding you like living mist, their sleek gray bodies warm and solid against the cool autumn air.

For the first time all day, your cheek did not seem to throb as sharply. For the first time all week, your chest did not feel so hollow. You sank carefully to your knees. Eris moved as though to warn you, then stopped himself. Clover lowered herself beside you. Onyx immediately placed his head in your lap.

You laughed again, softer this time, and stroked his ears while the other hounds pressed close enough to touch.

“They will ruin your dress,” Eris said.

You looked down at the mud already staining the hem. “It was already ruined.”

Something passed over his face at that. Guilt, perhaps. Eris crouched a few feet away, not close enough to crowd you, but near enough that the hounds’ attention split between you. Clover lifted her head to look at him.

He arched a brow at her.

“She likes very few people.” he told you.

You blinked.

“Clover?” A faint smile tugged at your mouth before you could stop it. “Then perhaps she has excellent judgment.”

Eris looked at you. The smile faded from your face quickly, instinctively hidden away as though any trace of amusement might be punished. His expression shifted. Not obviously, but you saw the moment he noticed what you had done.

His voice was quieter when he spoke. “Perhaps.”

The hounds settled around you. Clover remained pressed to your thigh. Onyx sprawled halfway across your lap, far too large for such a thing even at his age. You kept petting him because stopping seemed rude somehow. Eris stayed crouched across from you, one arm resting loosely on his knee. For several minutes, neither of you spoke.

Finally, Eris said, “Aven will not enter your rooms again without consequence.”

Your hand stilled on Onyx’s head, the hound opened one eye.

You did not look at Eris. “Please do not make this worse.”

If Eris challenged Aven, the confrontation would not end with Eris hiding in the gardens and wiping blood from his cheek.  You did not know how to survive more attention. Eris seemed to understand at least some part of that, because when he spoke again, his voice was controlled.

“What would you have me do?” You looked up at him then. No one ever asked you that. The question settled between you, startling and uncomfortable.

“I do not know,” you admitted.

Eris accepted that with a slow nod.

“Then until you do, Colin remains at your door. And if Aven wishes to enter, he will be announced. He does not get an exemption.”

You tensed.

Eris noticed.

“I am not asking you to refuse him,” he said. You looked away. “I am asking Colin to delay him long enough that you may decide whether you wish for him to be near you.”

Your throat tightened again. This time, you could not blame the wind. Clover shifted closer, her shoulder pressing warmly against your arm. You nodded once. It was not much, but Eris seemed to understand that it was all you could give.

He rose slowly, the hounds watched him.

“You may visit them whenever you like,” he said.

Your eyes lifted to his. “The hounds?”

“Yes.”

“I do not know if I should.”

“Clover seems to disagree.” At the sound of her name, the alpha’s ears flicked. You glanced down at her, and for some reason, the sight of that powerful, impossible creature sitting beside you as though guarding you from the world made another tear slip free.

You wiped it away quickly. Eris pretended not to notice. That was kindness too, you were beginning to realize. Not all kindness announced itself. Some of it simply gave you room to gather yourself.

“Thank you,” you said softly.

Eris inclined his head.

“For the walk?”

“For showing me them.” His gaze moved over the hounds gathered around you.

Then back to your face. “I thought you might prefer their company.”

“To yours?” The question slipped out before you could decide whether it was too bold. For one second, surprise flickered in his eyes.

Then something almost like amusement touched his mouth. “To most people’s.”

You looked down, but this time, you did not fully hide your smile. Clover rested her head against your knee. Onyx huffed in your lap. And Eris, still standing a few feet away, said nothing more.

He did not ask you to return to the House. He did not tell you to stop crying. He did not demand that you explain why a pack of smokehounds accepting you had nearly undone what little composure you had left. He simply remained nearby while the hounds gathered around you, their gray bodies warm against the coming winter air.

For once, no one seemed to want anything from you.

And though you did not yet know what to call the feeling blooming quietly beneath your ribs, it did not feel like fear.

It did not even feel like loneliness.

The sun had disappeared beneath the horizon not long ago, leaving the Forest House wrapped in deepening shadows and the warm glow of faelight.

The fire in the hearth still burned strongly, filling the private solar with enough heat that you had abandoned your slippers beneath the chaise and tucked your feet beneath the folds of your nightgown. A robe rested forgotten across a nearby chest. The book in your hands had ceased to hold your attention several pages ago, though you continued staring at the same passage as though the words might eventually arrange themselves into something meaningful.

Clover lay beside your feet. The smokehound took up a considerable portion of the carpet, her long gray body stretched toward the fire. Sleek as smoke and nearly as silent, she appeared perfectly content to remain there for the rest of the night. Her ears occasionally twitched at distant sounds within the Forest House, but she made no move to rise.

Eris had told you he would return later than usual.

He had said he intended to walk with his mother after supper, something that had not struck you as unusual at the time. He and Lady Penelope frequently escaped the court together, sometimes wandering the gardens and other times taking their horses beyond the Forest House grounds. Those outings were among the few opportunities they had to speak without Beron or his spies lingering nearby.

You respected that time. Still, it was growing late. You lowered the book into your lap and glanced toward the closed chamber doors.

“Where is he, Clover?”

The smokehound released a slow breath through her nose. A moment later, her jaws stretched wide in a lazy yawn.

You narrowed your eyes at her.

“Helpful.”

Clover’s tail struck the carpet once.

With a sigh, you closed your book and set it aside. Perhaps Eris had accompanied his mother back to her solar. He had been doing that more often lately, especially on evenings when Beron had been particularly cruel during dinner.

You crossed the room and collected the robe draped over the chest. The fabric was soft and heavy, reaching nearly to the floor once you slipped your arms into it and secured the belt around your waist.

Clover immediately rose.

“No.”

She followed you toward the door.

“Stay.”

The smokehound stopped reluctantly. Her ears lowered, and a small, displeased whine escaped her.

You resisted the urge to laugh.

“I will return shortly.”

Clover clearly did not believe you, but she remained where you had ordered her as you stepped into the corridor and quietly shut the door behind you. Sir Colin stood stationed outside. The young sentry immediately straightened, one hand moving instinctively toward the hilt of his sword.

“My lady, where—”

“I am going to Lady Penelope’s chambers.” You had barely taken three steps before the clink of armor sounded behind you. Colin followed.

“Forgive me, Lady Y/N, but I believe the Lady of Autumn has retired for the evening.”

You stopped.

Colin nearly walked into you before catching himself.

You turned slowly. “You know this how?”

“I saw Lady Penelope enter her bedchamber nearly an hour ago.” His brows drew together faintly. “She usually retires around this time.”

Confusion settled heavily within you.

If Penelope had been in her chambers for the past hour, then where was Eris?

“Have you seen my husband?”

“No, my lady.” Colin’s answer came quickly enough that you believed him. He shifted, perhaps noticing the concern forming across your face. “Perhaps Lord Eris has gone to visit the hounds.”

The suggestion was reasonable.

Unlike Clover, the other eleven smokehounds remained outside the Forest House. Beron had only tolerated Clover’s presence within the residence because she seldom left Eris’s side and because even he understood the value of keeping the alpha of Autumn’s prized hounds close to its heir. The others occupied grand kennels beyond the gardens.

Perhaps Eris had gone to them after leaving his mother. Yet the explanation did not settle properly within you.

For the past several months, Eris had made a habit of bringing you whenever he visited the pack. He knew how fond you had become of the hounds, and how thoroughly they had attached themselves to you in return.

“Very well,” you said. “I will go and see.”

You tightened your robe and started down the corridor. Colin followed, again. 

You stopped and glanced over your shoulder. “I am capable of reaching the gardens by myself, Sir Colin.”

“I am certain you are, my lady.”

“Then why are you still behind me?”

“Lord Eris instructed me to accompany you whenever you leave your chambers after dark.” Of course he had. You rolled your eyes and turned away before Colin could see.

The constant guard had become increasingly frustrating, especially now that you were capable of defending yourself. Eris claimed the precaution had nothing to do with doubting your abilities and everything to do with the number of enemies residing beneath Beron’s roof.

You suspected the distinction mattered far more to him than it did to you.

“Come along, then.”

You moved through the Forest House together, passing servants extinguishing unused faelights and guards beginning their nightly rotations. No one stopped you. No one seemed alarmed by Eris’s absence.

Outside, the air was cool and damp from the rain that had passed through earlier that afternoon. Small faelights lined the garden paths, their glow reflected in the moisture clinging to leaves and flower petals.

The farther you walked from the house, the darker the grounds became. Eventually, the path widened around the smokehounds’ kennels. Several sleek heads immediately lifted at your arrival. A few tails began striking the ground. One of the younger hounds surged to his feet and approached the fence with barely contained excitement.

“Hello, Onyx.”

You crouched beside the enclosure.

Onyx was only two years old, considerably younger than the rest of Eris’s pack. Though he had yet to grow into the full height of the others, he was already enormous. His gray coat gleamed silver beneath the faelights as he pushed his muzzle through the bars and nuzzled insistently against your palm.

You laughed softly and scratched beneath his jaw.

“Has Eris come to see you?” Onyx pressed closer. 

Behind him, the remaining smokehounds watched you with varying degrees of interest. All eleven were accounted for. None bore the restless energy that usually followed a run through the woods.

Eris had not been here.

You rose slowly. Colin remained several paces behind you, scanning the kennels and surrounding paths.

“My lady,” he began carefully, “perhaps we should return to your chambers. Lord Eris will likely arrive before the night is over.”

The suggestion should have been enough. Eris was allowed to spend an evening away from you. He did not need to account for every moment of his time. You knew that. Yet something felt wrong. You could not explain it. The feeling sat beneath your skin, sharp and restless, warning you that Eris’s absence was not accidental.

Your attention drifted toward the path leading beyond the kennels. The rain-softened ground held several fresh tracks. Boot prints. You moved closer, studying the shape and depth of them. The marks began near the outer garden wall and continued toward the tree line.

Eris’s boots.

You knew them well enough by now.

Colin stepped beside you. “My lady?”

You straightened.

If you intended to follow the tracks, Colin could not accompany you. Whatever Eris was doing, he had clearly gone to considerable trouble to do it privately. Arriving with one of his sentries at your back would only announce your approach.

You gathered your magic before Colin could stop you.

The world folded. Cold air rushed over you, and your stomach lurched as the kennels vanished. You reappeared just inside the forest. The jump was hardly graceful, but you managed to remain upright. Several yards behind you, Colin shouted your name.

You glanced back.

He was hurrying down the garden path, panic visible even at a distance. Guilt flickered through you. Eris would be furious.

You turned away before that realization could persuade you to return.

Winnowing was still new to you. Eris had been teaching you for months, first within the safety of your shared chambers and later across greater distances. Your first attempt to reach the kennels had landed you near the front steps of the Forest House instead.

Eris had nearly torn the residence apart searching for you. He would likely do worse when he discovered you had winnowed into the woods alone at night.

You found the boot prints again and followed them.

The trees grew denser as you walked. Branches snagged at your robe, and damp leaves clung to the thin soles of your slippers. You had not dressed for a trek through the forest, but turning back now seemed impossible. The farther you traveled, the colder the air became.

You were nearing the border between Autumn and Winter.

Then you heard voices.

Both male, one belonging to Eris.

You slowed immediately. He was too far from the Forest House for this to be an ordinary meeting. Too close to another court’s border.  You moved quietly between the trees, following the sound until orange firelight flickered through the branches. Keeping yourself behind the thick trunk of an ancient oak, you peered around it.

Eris stood in a small clearing. The male facing him was impossible to mistake. Shoulder-length black hair moved in the wind. Seven ruby siphons gleamed across his dark armor. A long sword had been strapped down the column of his spine, resting between two enormous membranous wings.

Cassian, the General of the Night Court.

Your breath caught. What in the hell was an Illyrian warrior doing inside Autumn’s borders? More importantly, why was your husband meeting him?

You took one startled step backward. A branch cracked beneath your slipper, and both males turned. Power erupted through the clearing. You barely managed to duck before a blast struck the tree where your head had been. Bark exploded outward. You threw up one arm to shield your face, magic roaring instinctively beneath your skin.

A blade flashed.

The edge stopped against your throat.

“Who the hell are you?” Cassian demanded.

You did not cower. White-gold light flooded your vision as your power rose in answer to the threat. Flames curled into your palm, bright enough to illuminate the Illyrian’s harsh expression. Before you could release them, someone seized your arm from behind. You were pulled sharply away from Cassian’s blade.

Your feet slipped on the damp earth. You hit the ground hard, the breath knocked from your lungs.

“Y/N?” Eris stood over you. For once, his carefully controlled expression had shattered completely. Alarm sharpened every line of his face.

Cassian lowered his sword slightly. “You know her?”

Eris ignored him. He bent and hauled you to your feet, both hands closing around your arms. His grip was firm, almost painful, as his eyes moved rapidly over your face and body in search of injuries.

“What are you doing here?” His gaze snapped toward the trees behind you. “Where is Colin?”

“I left him near the kennels after I found your tracks.” You tore yourself from his grasp. “What are you doing here with the General of the Night Court?”

Cassian sheathed his sword. He looked between you and Eris, clearly attempting to determine whether you were a threat, a spy, or something else.  Eris’s face went still, the alarm vanished behind the cold mask he wore so easily before the rest of the court.

“Vanserra,” Cassian said, impatience roughening his voice, “who the hell is she?”

Eris sent him a lethal glare. “None of your concern.”

“Bullshit.” Cassian stepped closer. “She just walked into a meeting neither of us can afford to have witnessed. Is she is going to cause problems?”

“Will one of you tell me what is happening?” Your voice cut across the clearing.

Cassian looked at you, but Eris did not. He stared into the forest as though calculating how quickly he could undo what had happened.

“Eris,” you said more quietly. “Please.”

His jaw tightened. “You should not have followed me.”

The words struck harder than you expected. “That is your answer?”

“This is neither the place nor the time. Go back to the Forest House.” The command was delivered in the same tone he used with servants, soldiers, and courtiers he did not trust.

Heat flared beneath your skin.

You stared at him. “No.”

Cassian’s brows rose. Eris’s gaze finally met yours, the coldness there was deliberate.

“Y/N.”

“What are you doing with him?”

“That does not concern you.”  For a moment, you could only look at him.

A year and a half.

You had lived beside him for a year and a half. Shared meals. Shared rooms. Shared long silences that had gradually become something gentler, something safer. You had given him truths you had never imagined placing in another male’s hands. He had asked for honesty from you. He had promised there would be no more quiet manipulations, no more hidden cruelties dressed up as necessity.

And now he stood in the middle of a dark forest with the Night Court’s general and told you it did not concern you.

Something hot and sharp cracked through your chest. You did not wait for him to say another word. Power rushed up beneath your skin, answering your anger before your mind had fully caught up with it. The clearing vanished in a burst of heat and wind.

“Y/N—”

Eris’s voice snapped after you just as the world folded.

You landed hard inside your bedchamber.

The force of the winnow sent you stumbling two steps across the carpet before you caught yourself against one of the carved bedposts. The room swam for half a heartbeat. The familiar warmth of the hearth hit your face, sickening after the cold bite of the forest air. Your lungs still burned from the fall. Your arm ached where Eris had seized you. Damp leaves clung to the hem of your robe, and your slippers had tracked mud onto the polished floor.

Clover surged upright from where she had been dozing near the fire.

The smokehound crossed the room in three long strides, pressing herself against your side with a low sound in her chest. You dragged a shaking hand over her sleek head, more to steady yourself than to comfort her.

The room still smelled of cedarwood, firelight, and the faint floral oil you had rubbed onto your wrists after bathing. Everything looked exactly as it had when you left.

You did not.

Power rippled behind you almost instantly.

Of course he had followed.

Eris appeared near the chamber doors, breathing harder than he should have been, his red-gold hair windswept, his expression carved from pure fury and strain. Clover moved at once, stepping between the two of you with her ears flat and a warning rumble vibrating through the room.

Eris looked at the hound.

“Out.”

Clover did not move.

His jaw tightened. “Clover.”

You swallowed the heat stinging behind your eyes and forced your voice steady. “Go.”

Clover turned her head toward you, reluctance plain in the angle of her body.

“Go,” you repeated.

The smokehound huffed, displeased, then padded toward the door. Eris opened it just enough to let her slip through before shutting it firmly behind her. A pulse of power followed. Wards clicked into place around the room.

You stared at him.

“You are locking me in now?”

Eris turned from the door. “I am making certain no one hears this.”

“That implies there is something worth hearing.” His gaze sharpened, but he did not answer.

You ripped the robe from your shoulders and threw it across the foot of the bed. Damp leaves scattered over the coverlet. Mud stained the pale carpet beneath your slippers. You did not care.

For one strained second, neither of you spoke.

Then Eris said, “You should never have gone into those woods alone.”

You gave a disbelieving laugh. “That is what you have to say to me?”

“You winnowed into the forest at night with no guard, no weapon, and no idea what you were walking into.”

“I was looking for my husband.”

“You should have remained where it was safe.” The words hit you like a slap. Safe, as though that was still a thing he could offer you while standing there with another secret tucked behind his teeth.

Your voice dropped low. “Do not say that to me right now.”

Eris stepped farther into the room, every line of him rigid. “You could have been killed before I reached you.”

“But you did reach me.” You took a step toward him too. “And then you stood there and looked at me as though I were the problem.”

His nostrils flared. “Because you were.”

The answer made your temper snap.

“You told me you were with your mother.”

“I was.”

“And after that?” Silence.

You laughed once, short and brittle. “Exactly.”

Eris dragged a hand over his jaw, already looking as though the conversation had exhausted him, though it had barely begun. “This is not a discussion to have while you are angry.”

You stared at him. “I am angry because you are refusing to discuss it.”

“That male was not a matter for you to concern yourself with.”

“Cassian, General of the Night Court, standing on Autumn soil with my husband in the dead of night is absolutely my concern.”

“It is not.” The words rang cold and absolute. For a heartbeat, hurt nearly overtook your anger. You crushed it down before he could see it.

“It stopped being only your concern the moment I saw him.”

Eris’s expression did not shift, but tension flickered at the corners of his mouth.

“That is precisely the problem.”

There it was. Not denial, not reassurance, not even an attempt to smooth it over.

You crossed your arms tightly over yourself, as though it might hold the pieces of your temper together. “Then tell me what is happening.”

“No.” It was so blunt you almost thought you had misheard him.

“Excuse me?”

“I am not discussing this with you.”

“You are not discussing it with me,” you repeated slowly, “after I just found you having a secret meeting with the Night Court?”

“Yes.” You looked away from him, suddenly unable to breathe properly in the heat of the room. The fire snapped in the hearth. The sound seemed unnaturally loud.

“No more secrets,” you said quietly. Eris’s gaze flicked to you. “That was our agreement.”

His mouth hardened. “This is different.”

You turned back toward him so quickly the movement made your head spin.

“No, Eris. It is not.”

“It concerns court matters.”

“It concerns you.” Your voice rose. “It concerns your father. It concerns the Night Court. It concerns whatever in the hel you are doing behind Beron’s back. How dare you stand there and tell me it does not concern me?”

Eris’s own temper flashed at last. “Because the less you know, the safer you are.”

You froze. The room seemed to go quiet around those words. Safer. Kept in the dark for your own good. Decisions made above your head because some male had deemed you too vulnerable to be trusted with your own life. Aven had called it protection too. So had others, in their own ways.

Your voice came out thinner than you wanted. “You promised me.”

For the first time since following you into the room, something shifted in Eris’s face. Not enough to soften him. Just enough to show he knew exactly which promise you meant.

“There would be no more secrets between us,” you said.

His answer was immediate. “This is not needless.”

You blinked.

The rage that rose then was steadier than what had come before, colder.

“That is not what you promised.”

Eris did not reply.

“You asked me for honesty,” you continued. “You asked me to trust you. You asked me to stop waiting for the knife in your hand because you swore you would not hide things from me anymore.”

“This is not the same.”

“It feels exactly the same.”

His jaw tightened. “Do not compare me to him.”

“I did not say his name.”

“You did not need to.” The hurt in his voice nearly undid you, nearly.

You stepped closer until barely two feet separated you.

“Then do not behave like every other male who has ever decided he knows what I should and should not be allowed to know.”

Eris went very still.

When he spoke, his voice had gone dangerously quiet. “You think that is what this is? If my father learns you know anything—”

“Anything about what?” His mouth snapped shut.

You spread your hands in disbelief. “That is exactly my point.”

Eris looked away for one brief second, like he was restraining himself by sheer force.

Then he said, “You are asking questions I will not answer.”

“What happens if Beron finds out?”

No response.

“What are you planning?”

Nothing.

“What happens to Lady Penelope if this goes wrong? To your brothers?” You stepped closer still, the words tumbling out faster now. “What happens to me?”

His gaze flashed back to yours.

“If this goes wrong, my mother—” Then he cuts himself off.

“That,” he said, voice colder now, “is exactly why you were never meant to know.”

Something in you recoiled. Not because he had raised his voice. Not because he had threatened you. Because there was fear under the words. Real fear. And still—still—he had decided fear gave him the right to shut you out.

You laughed bitterly. “You do hear yourself, do you not?”

“You are upset.”

“I am furious.”

“Which is making you careless.”

“You are making me furious.”

His control slipped. “I am trying to keep you alive.” The shout cracked through the room. Fire leapt in the hearth.

Silence followed.

You stared at him. His breathing had gone heavier, yours as well.

When Eris spoke again, his voice was lower. Rougher.

“My father has already taken notice of you.”

That stole some of the heat from your anger, if only because it was the first thing resembling honesty he had given you.

Eris continued before you could speak.

“He tolerated you when you were merely Aven’s sister and my inconvenient bride. Then your power surfaced. Then your feud with Aven spilled into the open. Then Beron saw exactly what you are capable of.” His eyes dragged over your face as though he hated every word he was forced to say. “Do you think I have not noticed what changed after that? Do you think I do not see the way he watches you now?”

Cold prickled down your spine.

You had known Beron’s attention had sharpened. You had felt it in the dining hall, in the corridors, in the moments where his gaze seemed to linger too long. But hearing Eris say it aloud made it real in a way you despised.

“And your answer,” you said carefully, “was to lie to me.”

“My answer was to give him one less reason to use you.”

“You do not know that he will not use me anyway.”

“No,” Eris bit out. “I do not. But I know exactly what sort of male he is, and I will not hand him another weapon.”

You shook your head. “You do not get to make that choice by yourself.”

“I already have.” The words landed between you with brutal finality. You stared at him, feeling something hot and sharp rise into your throat.

“Yes,” you said after a moment. “You have.”

Eris looked as though he wanted to take it back, but pride kept him from trying.

You moved away from him then, if only because you could not bear standing that close while he dismantled everything the two of you had spent months trying to build. You stopped near the hearth, staring into the flames as though they might offer some answer he would not.

“We are supposed to be a unit.” Your voice came out quieter now. 

Behind you, Eris did not move.

“That is what we have been working toward,” you went on. “Every dinner, every conversation, every compromise. Every time I held my tongue before your father because we both knew what would happen if he suspected there was anything real between us. I let him believe I was still only a bargain because you asked me to.”

“We are a unit.”

“Are we?” You turned to face him again. “Because now I find out there are pieces of your life so dangerous you will not even speak of them to me, and I am meant to accept that this is somehow different?”

Eris’s eyes burned.

“Yes.”

You almost smiled. Not from amusement, from sheer disbelief. “Then perhaps I have been a fool.”

His expression sharpened. “Do not.”

“Do not what? Say aloud what you are making me feel?”

“This is not what I intended.” That did it.

“You are making me feel like an outsider in my own marriage.” The words rang through the room. Eris flinched. It was small, most people would never have seen it, but you did.

He said, more quietly, “That is not what you are.”

“Then stop treating me like I cannot be trusted to stand beside you.”

“It is not about trust.”

“Then what is it about?” 

His silence stretched too long, until at last he said, “Survival.”

You stared at him. There was no arrogance in it. Just a raw, ugly truth he clearly hated. Still, it did not make the wound vanish.

“You think keeping me ignorant is the same as protecting me.”

“In this case, it is.”

“In this case,” you echoed, “you sound exactly like the sort of male you claim not to be.”

His face hardened. “Enough.”

“No.” Power stirred under your skin again, hot and restless. “You do not get to decide when I have heard enough after I was the only one denied the truth in the first place.”

“I am deciding because this conversation goes no further.”

“Why?” Your voice cracked. “Because I might ask the wrong question? Because I might force you to admit that whatever you are doing could destroy every person in this house?”

Eris closed the distance between you in two strides.

His presence hit like a wall of heat and iron and fury held on too tight.

“Listen to me,” he said. “Whatever you think you understand, it is not enough. And if you continue speaking of this carelessly, you may place yourself in danger you cannot begin to imagine.”

Your chin lifted.

“Then perhaps you should have imagined that before making promises you had no intention of keeping.”

For a moment, the hurt in his eyes was worse than the anger. Then it vanished.

Eris stepped back. “I am not discussing this further tonight.”

You laughed hollowly. “Of course not.”

“I mean it.”

You stepped into him this time, heedless of the danger in his face. “I am your wife, Eris. I am not some courtier prying into business that does not belong to them. I share your bed. I bear your name. I have stood beside you while your father looked for weaknesses to exploit, and all this while you have been deciding on my behalf what I may survive knowing.”

His restraint snapped for a single heartbeat. “I would rather have you angry with me than dead.”

The room went still.

Your throat tightened painfully.

You looked at him for a long moment, taking in the tension carved into every line of his body, the way his hands flexed at his sides like he wanted to reach for you and did not dare, the way his eyes kept searching your face as though checking that you were still there.

It should have softened you. It did, a little.

It also made you want to cry.

Instead, you said, “You should sleep elsewhere tonight.”

Eris did not move, a single muscle ticked in his jaw. “Y/N.”

“I cannot lie beside you and pretend this is fine. I cannot let you put your arms around me after looking me in the eye and telling me I am better off blind.” Your voice shook now despite your efforts. “Not tonight.”

For several seconds, Eris only stared at you.

Then he inclined his head once.

A curt, wounded gesture.

“Very well.”

He turned toward the door and lifted the ward with a flick of power. The magic dissolved from the walls like mist burning off in morning light. His hand settled on the handle. You thought that would be it.

Then he said, without turning back, “You will not leave these chambers without a guard.”

You nearly laughed again from the sheer absurdity of it.

“You are impossible.”

“You are still a beacon to every predator in this court.” He looked over his shoulder then, and for a single terrible second the mask dropped completely. You saw the truth he refused to give you. Not in words, but in the strain of his face.

He was afraid, for you. Of Beron, of what might happen if any of this unraveled. Afraid enough to betray the very trust he had spent a year and a half building. It did not forgive him. It did make your anger ache.

“I will be in the east wing,” he said quietly.

Then he stepped into the corridor and pulled the door shut behind him. Silence rushed in after him. The room felt too large at once. A moment later, Clover slipped back through the barely latched door, as though she had been waiting for the exact instant she was allowed to return. The smokehound crossed the room at once and pressed herself against your legs.

You sank to the floor beside the bed and wrapped both arms around her neck. Only then did the tears come. Hot and humiliating and impossible to stop. Eris had not explained what you had seen. He had not trusted you with the truth.

But he had given you enough to understand one thing with awful clarity.

Whatever war he had been fighting in silence, Eris had decided long ago that he would rather lose pieces of himself than risk letting it touch you.

The celebration had stretched far beyond the point where you could still pretend to be hungry.

Silver platters crowded the long table beneath the glow of suspended chandeliers, each dish richer than the last. Roasted pheasant glazed in honey and cloves. Root vegetables darkened at the edges with butter and herbs. Bowls of late-season fruit arranged beneath curling branches of sugared amber leaves. Wine flowed freely from crystal decanters, deep red beneath the candlelight.

You had eaten perhaps four bites.

The first had been because Aven had looked at your plate, the second because he had looked again. After that, you had learned to move the food around with your fork whenever someone glanced in your direction.

The dining hall was warm enough that several guests had loosened the high collars of their formal coats, yet you could not stop shivering. The fire burning in the enormous hearth should have reached you. There were braziers lining the walls, flames dancing in iron bowls shaped like curling antlers. Hundreds of candles burned overhead and across the tables.

Still, the cold remained. It had settled too deeply to be chased away by something as simple as fire. Your wedding gown did not help. It was a beautiful thing, everyone had assured you, a masterpiece. Aven had called it appropriate and Beron's seamstresses had called it an honor to dress the newest daughter of Autumn.

No one had asked what you wanted.

The gown was constructed from layers of dark crimson silk that shifted toward copper whenever you moved. Gold thread crawled over the bodice in the shape of flame-tipped leaves, thick enough that the embroidery scratched against your skin beneath the lining. The waist had been pulled so tightly that every breath pressed the boning deeper into your ribs, while the skirt pooled heavily around your chair, trapping your legs beneath yards of fabric.

The sleeves were fitted from shoulder to wrist and ended in narrow points over the backs of your hands. Small garnets had been sewn into the cuffs. They clicked softly against the table whenever you reached for your glass.

Your hands did not look like your own.

Neither did the rest of you.

The mirror had shown you a woman painted in the colors of the family that now possessed her. Gold dust had been brushed across your eyelids. Your lips had been stained red. Your hair had been pinned beneath a narrow crown fashioned from autumn leaves and fire opals, its weight pulling relentlessly at your scalp.

You sat at the end of the high table, elevated above the rest of the hall by three shallow steps.  Aven sat to your left with his back toward the gathering, one arm resting along the edge of the table as though the seat belonged to him as much as any place ever had. He had barely spoken to you since the vows, but you remained aware of him.

Every movement.

Every pause.

Every shift in his breathing.

Eris sat at your right, facing the hall. Your now husband. The word still felt borrowed. He wore black rather than the rust and red favored by his family, though gold embroidery marked the high collar and shoulders of his formal coat. His hair had been tied back at the nape of his neck. He looked untouched by the length of the evening. Unbothered by the hundreds of eyes turned toward the table.

He had spoken to you only when ceremony required it. When he had placed the ring on your finger and the priestess instructed him to repeat the vows. When he escorted you into the dining hall and pulled out your chair. Each word had been delivered in the same measured tone.

Beron Vanserra sat near the center of the table, positioned so that no one could forget who presided over the celebration. The High Lord lounged in his chair with one hand curled around a goblet, his dark eyes moving over the hall as if taking inventory of everything he owned.

His wife sat beside him.

The Lady of Autumn had spoken little throughout the meal. She was dressed in pale gold, her auburn hair arranged in intricate braids beneath a delicate circlet. Her expression had been carefully serene each time you dared look at her, though there was something distant in her gaze. You wondered if she too had learned to disappear while remaining perfectly still.

Across from her sat Eris's brothers.

Callan, the second eldest, had spent most of the evening watching the guests below with thinly veiled boredom. He resembled Eris around the eyes, though whatever sharpness they shared had curdled into something harsher in him. Tharos sat beside him, smiling often, his attention shifting between conversations as though collecting pieces of information to use later.

Jaren, the youngest of those present, had barely spoken at all. He drank slowly and kept his gaze lowered whenever Beron addressed the table. You had not yet decided whether his quiet made him safer. Quiet males had never been safe merely because they were quiet.

A burst of laughter rose from somewhere below. You flinched before you could stop yourself. Aven's fingers tapped once against the table, only once. It was enough for your spine to  straighten immediately. You lifted your fork and cut a small piece from the roasted carrot cooling on your plate. The metal shook faintly between your fingers as you brought the bite to your mouth.

Beside you, Eris set down his wine. You felt the movement more than saw it. You lowered your fork carefully, ensuring it did not strike the plate. Conversation continued around you. Callan was describing an estate along the eastern border. Tharos corrected him twice, smiling as he did so. Aven responded when spoken to, presenting each answer with the polished certainty of a male accustomed to lying without hesitation.

You kept your gaze on your plate.

Perhaps no one would address you again.

Perhaps the meal would end without further inspection.

Perhaps—

"I had expected more from the Carlisle line." Beron's voice carried easily across the table. All conversation came to a halt. You knew before lifting your eyes that he was looking at you. Still, you did not move immediately. Aven's knee pressed against yours beneath the table. You raised your head.

Beron leaned back in his chair, turning his goblet slowly between his fingers.

"My lord?" Aven asked.

Beron's mouth curved. "Your family once boasted of unusual gifts, did it not?"

Aven's posture remained relaxed. "The Carlisle bloodline possesses a distinguished history."

"So I have heard."

Beron looked directly at you. The attention of the room followed. Even the conversations below the dais seemed to dull as though the hall itself understood when its High Lord wished to be heard.

You held yourself still.

Do not look away too quickly.

Do not stare.

Do not slouch.

Beron took a drink.

"And yet your sister brings none of those distinguished talents into my household." Silence settled over the high table. Your fingers tightened around the fabric of your napkin.

"Her abilities have not manifested," he replied. The answer was smooth, practiced. You had heard him use it before. As a child, you had believed him when he said you were merely late. Later, he said you were stubborn. Then defective. The word itself had never been spoken in front of company, but it had lived in every look he gave you.

Beron raised a brow. "Not manifested."

"No."

"At her age." Aven's jaw tightened by the smallest degree.

"Magic does not follow a predictable schedule." A soft chuckle came from Callan. Tharos did not laugh, though amusement flickered across his face. The Lady of Autumn looked at you, only briefly. There was no pity in her expression. Perhaps pity was another thing no one could safely show beneath Beron's roof.

Beron rested his goblet against the table.

"How unfortunate."

The words were almost pleasant.

"Nearly every guest in this hall carries some measure of power," he continued. "Fire. Wind. Glamour. Strength. Even the least remarkable among them can manage a spark."

The skin beneath your gown seemed to draw tighter. You could feel every place the fabric scratched. Every rib trapped beneath the bodice, every jeweled pin digging into your scalp. Beron's gaze moved over you as if searching for whatever was missing.

"And my eldest son has been given a bride who cannot so much as warm her own hands." A few quiet laughs moved through the lower tables. You curled your palms beneath the table so no one would see. Aven's knee remained pressed against yours, his face remained calm.

"My sister has other virtues," Aven said. Your stomach dropped when Beron looked toward him.

"Does she?"

"She is obedient." The word struck more sharply than the laughter had. Aven continued as though discussing the quality of a horse. "She is quiet. Properly educated. She understands household duties and the expectations placed upon a wife."

He finally looked at you.

"She has always understood what is required of her." Your mouth went dry. There it was, the reminder beneath the reassurance. You knew what was required, you knew what would come if you failed. Beron considered you for another long moment.

"Obedience is useful," he conceded.

Then he glanced toward Eris.

"Though one wonders whether obedience alone is enough compensation for weak blood." Eris had not moved. He sat with one elbow resting lightly against the arm of his chair, his expression touched by the same disinterest he had worn through most of the feast.

Only his eyes had changed. You did not understand the look in them. It was not anger, exactly. It was too contained for that. His gaze shifted from Beron to Aven, then finally to you. You dropped your eyes at once. You should not have been watching him.

"The marriage was not negotiated on the sole strength of her magic," Eris said, his voice even.

"No?"

"No."

Aven's knee withdrew from yours beneath the table. You did not know whether to be relieved.

Beron tilted his head. "And what, precisely, was it negotiated upon?"

"Land."

Aven's fingers stilled around the stem of his glass.

"Trade access," Eris continued. "Further control of the western passage. Carlisle allegiance should conflict arise along the southern border."

He spoke as though reading from a document.

Beron's mouth curved again.

"You make marriage sound terribly unromantic." Callan laughed at that, but Eris did not.

"It is a contract." There should have been comfort in the fact that he was not pretending otherwise.

Beron raised his goblet in mock agreement. "At least one of us remembers that."

Conversation resumed slowly.

Callan turned back to Tharos. Aven lifted his wine. The Lady of Autumn returned her attention to the hall. The moment passed for everyone except you. Your plate blurred at the edges. You fixed your gaze on a curl of gold painted along the porcelain until the room steadied.

Eris reached for the decanter, his sleeve brushing the tablecloth near your hand. You pulled your fingers into your lap. He paused, only for an instant before he poured himself more wine. You waited for him to speak. Of course he did not. What could he say? That his father was wrong? Beron was not wrong, you had no magic, no power. Nothing that could make the match worthwhile beyond whatever land and loyalty Aven had promised.

You were obedient, that was your virtue. You had been trained for it carefully.

The meal dragged onward. Servants cleared the final dishes and replaced them with delicate pastries dusted in sugar, bowls of cream, and tiny cakes glazed in burnt honey. You did not touch any of them. The pressure of the gown had become unbearable. Each breath caught against the boning. Your back ached from holding yourself straight. One of the pins above your left ear had begun to pull sharply whenever you moved your head.

You wanted to remove the crown, to loosen the sleeves. You wanted to stand barefoot in an empty room wearing something soft enough that it did not feel like another pair of hands holding you in place. Instead, you sat perfectly still.

The musicians in the gallery began adjusting their instruments. A violin sang one low note. Your heart lurched. The dance.

You stared at the untouched cake before you. At least the dance would happen here. In the light and before witnesses. You hated that the thought offered any comfort.

Beron rose.

The hall quieted immediately.

"My friends," he announced, spreading one hand toward the guests below. "We have eaten, drunk, and witnessed the joining of two ancient houses."

Applause rolled through the room. You did not move until Aven's hand settled briefly against the back of your chair. Then you smiled. Beron continued speaking, praising Autumn, strength, bloodlines, alliances. The words blurred together until they became only sound.

Beside you, Eris stood. He buttoned his coat with one hand, then turned toward you. Every eye in the hall seemed to follow. You looked at the hand he offered. Long fingers, a gold signet ring. A faint scar crossing one knuckle. You knew what you were meant to do. Still, your body did not obey immediately.

Aven leaned closer.

"Do not make him wait." His voice was too low for anyone else to hear.

You placed your hand in Eris's and his fingers closed around yours. Your hand looked very small against his. Eris's gaze dropped to where your skin met his. His thumb shifted once against your knuckles. You could not tell whether the movement was accidental.

"Stand," he said.

You rose.

The heavy skirt resisted, dragging against the chair. For one terrible second, the heel of your slipper caught beneath the hem. Your balance tilted and Eris's grip tightened. His other hand closed around your forearm before you could fall back into the table. A hush moved through the nearest guests. Your entire body locked.

The mistake had already happened. You waited for his fingers to bite into your skin. For the quiet reprimand, for the anger held until later. Eris only steadied you. His eyes moved over your face, then down toward the folds of crimson silk trapping your feet.

"Your dress is too long." The words were flat, practical.

You lowered your head.

"I am sorry."

His expression changed by the smallest degree. "For the dress?"

You did not know how to answer.

"I should have been more careful," you whispered.

Eris looked toward Aven, his hand still remained around yours. Then he turned back to the steps. "Lift the front of the skirt."

Heat climbed into your face. You obeyed, gathering a portion of the heavy fabric in your free hand. Eris descended first. The three steps should have been simple, but they felt like crossing the edge of something.

The guests moved back as you approached, forming a wide circle in the center of the hall. Candles burned above them. Autumn garlands climbed the pillars, woven from red leaves, dark berries, and narrow ribbons of gold. Everyone was smiling. You wondered how many of them had watched other girls walk into marriages like this. How many had applauded, how many had called it beautiful.

The musicians raised their bows. Eris stopped at the center of the floor and turned toward you. For the first time that night, there was nothing between you. No table, no priestess, no line of guests offering congratulations. Only the hand he placed at your waist. Even through the thick layers of your gown, you felt the heat of his palm.

Eris looked down at you, you forced your face blank. He said nothing as the music began. One slow note, then another. He drew you into the first step. You followed because you had practiced. Aven had made certain of that. Again and again beneath the eye of an instructor who struck the floor with a cane whenever you fell behind the rhythm.

Left.

Turn.

Back.

Do not look at your feet.

Smile.

Eris guided you around the floor. His movements were exact, his posture rigid enough to match the formality of the occasion. He did not hold you gently. His hand remained fixed against your waist. Yours rested lightly against his shoulder, afraid to place too much weight there. His fingers enclosed yours as the room began to turn around you. Faces passed in fragments. You could quickly spot Callan near the edge of the floor, Tharos speaking behind one hand to a courtier, Jaren standing beside the table.

And Aven, always Aven. Each time the dance turned you toward the high table, you found him. The angle of his shoulders, the shape of his mouth. The slight narrowing of his eyes when your steps fell half a beat behind. You tried correcting yourself immediately, which Eris noticed. His gaze followed yours during the next turn. You looked away before he could discover what you had been watching.

"Your attention is elsewhere," he said. The comment was quiet enough to disappear beneath the music.

"I am sorry."

His jaw shifted.

"You apologize frequently." You did not know whether that was criticism.

"I can stop." Eris looked at you, and you wished you had remained silent. The skirt dragged around your legs with every turn. The weight of the crown pulled at your hair. Your lungs burned from trying to breathe against the bodice without letting anyone see how difficult it had become.

The hall was too warm now, or perhaps you were going to faint. You refocused and concentrated on the pattern.

Left.

Turn.

Back.

The music swelled as Eris guided you through another rotation. Angling his body so that his back briefly blocked your view of the high table. For three steps, you could not see Aven. Panic rose before you understood why. You shifted too quickly, trying to find him again. Your heel landed on the edge of your skirt, pulling the fabric. Your balance disappeared and there was no time to catch yourself.

Eris did.

His arm locked around your waist, drawing you sharply against him before your knees could strike the floor. Your hand clenched instinctively against his shoulder. The music continued around you, the musicians too disciplined to stop. A few guests murmured, but Eris did not release you. Your body went completely still in his hold.

You had failed.

In front of everyone.

Aven had warned you.

Do not shame me.

The room blurred. You waited for Eris to tighten his grip, to whisper something cruel against your ear while smiling for the court. To make you finish the dance and punish you once the doors closed.

His breath touched your temple.

"Stand."

You forced your legs beneath you. Eris adjusted his hold until you were balanced again. His face remained composed. To anyone watching, the stumble might have appeared deliberate. A graceful dip. A flourish in the dance. Only you knew how close you had come to falling, and only Eris knew how violently you were shaking.

"I am sorry," you breathed.

"Stop." The command sent ice through you. You lowered your gaze.

Eris exhaled slowly. His hand shifted at your waist, not tightening, but resettling more securely against the heavy fabric.

"Your hem caught," he said. "That is not a moral failing."

You looked at him, you could not help it. For the first time, something in his expression seemed directed at you rather than through you. A faint, controlled irritation. You did not know whether it was meant for the dress, the seamstress, or you.

"I should have watched my step."

"You were watching your brother." Eris's eyes flicked toward the high table. Aven stood exactly where he had been, one hand around his glass, watching. You pulled your hand from Eris's shoulder before remembering that you could not.

His grip closed more firmly around yours.

"Do not," he said.

The court continued circling at the edge of your vision. Eris leaned closer, though his face remained turned slightly away as if the movement were part of the dance.

"Not unless you wish to draw attention."

You placed your hand back against his shoulder.

Heat crawled up your neck.

"I did not mean to—"

"I know." The words stopped you. Eris only straightened before guiding you forward once more. The next steps were slower. He had changed the rhythm to accommodate you. You did not understand why. Perhaps he did not want another mistake witnessed. Perhaps he was embarrassed by the bride he had been given.

Perhaps he had realized how little strength you possessed and was adjusting so you did not collapse before the song ended. Your hand remained trapped between his fingers. His palm remained warm against your waist. Each turn brought you back toward Aven. Each time, Eris shifted his position slightly.

Not enough to make it obvious, but just enough that your brother was obscured behind his shoulder more often than before. At first you thought it was deliberate, then told yourself it could not be. Eris did not know you, he did not care whether Aven watched. He had made that clear through every clipped word, every hour spent away from you, every silence since the arrangement began.

The final movement approached, you recognized it in the music. Relief loosened something inside you. Then dread rushed in to occupy the space.

The dance would end, the guests would applaud, the night would continue. Your gaze drifted toward the doors beyond the high table. Beyond them lay the corridors. Then staircase, and beyond that the chamber prepared for Eris and his bride.

Aven had made the expectation clear before leading you to the ceremony.

You will not shame me by refusing him.

The final notes rang through the hall. Eris turned you once more and brought you to a stop before him. Applause broke around you. You smiled like Aven had told you to. Eris looked down at you. For one strange moment, he did not release your hand. His fingers remained around yours while the court watched.

Possession, you thought. You belong here now.

Aven stepped toward the floor. Eris's gaze moved past you, his hand tightened by the smallest degree. He turned before your brother could reach you and positioned himself at your side, close enough that your sleeves brushed. Aven stopped a few feet away, his smile was polished.

"Well done, sister." You searched his face for the true meaning. Had you embarrassed him? Had the stumble been noticed? Would he speak to you alone before leaving?

"I apologize for—"

Eris interrupted.

"The seamstress misjudged the hem."

Aven looked at him.

"So it seems."

You glanced toward Eris, though his eyes were not on yours. His attention remained on Aven, his expression faintly bored, one hand still holding yours as if he had forgotten to let go.

Aven's smile tightened.

The musicians began another song. Guests moved toward the floor in pairs, their laughter rising once again. Eris released your hand at last, cold rushed into the space his fingers had occupied. You folded your hands together immediately.

He looked down at them.

Then at you.

"You may sit." It sounded like permission, perhaps it was. 

You returned to the high table beneath the weight of a hundred glances, the crimson skirt dragging behind you. Eris walked beside you but did not offer his arm.

When you reached your chair, he pulled it out for you to sit. The crown pressed against your aching scalp. The bodice trapped your next breath. You had married a stranger beneath the eyes of monsters. 

The Forest House had gone quiet hours ago.

The old manor seemed incapable of it. Timber shifted behind the walls as the night cooled. Wind pressed against the tall windows in long, low sighs, stirring the bare branches beyond the glass. Somewhere deep within the western wing, a door opened and shut. Footsteps crossed a distant corridor, then faded into nothing.

You sat at the edge of the bed and listened to every sound.

The chamber was too large, everything in the Forest House was too large really. Too tall, too dark, too carefully arranged. The bed alone could have fit four people comfortably, dressed in deep green linens and heavy blankets embroidered with gold thread. A fire burned in the hearth across the room, but it did little to chase the chill from your skin.

You had been sitting close to it earlier, though not too close. You knew better than to make yourself comfortable without permission. But enough that the warmth had touched your knees through the thin fabric of your nightgown. Now, you had moved to the bed because the handmaid had told you the bath was almost ready, and you thought perhaps this was where you were meant to wait.

Steam had begun to drift from the bathing chamber through the partially open door, curling into the bedroom in thin white wisps. The faint splash of water followed, then the scrape of a metal bucket being set down.

The handmaid, Mira, was humming beneath her breath.

She always did that when she worked. It was a soft, absent sort of sound, one that suggested she had forgotten you were there. You preferred it that way. Servants who forgot your presence did not watch too closely. They did not notice how slowly you moved or how your hands trembled when you tried to undo the small pearl buttons at your wrists.

They never asked if you were well, which you suppose was a good thing seeing as you had never known how to answer that question.

Outside the chamber doors, Colin stood guard. You could not see him, but you knew he was there. Eris had assigned him to you less than a week after the wedding. The order had been delivered with so little ceremony that, at first, you had assumed you had done something wrong. You had spent the better part of the afternoon trying to remember whether you had stepped somewhere forbidden, spoken too loudly, or embarrassed his family somehow.

Then Colin had appeared outside the library doors and bowed to you.

“My lady.”

You had stared at him for so long that the male had shifted awkwardly beneath the weight of his armor. Later, Mira had explained that he was not there to watch you, but to protect you. The distinction still felt difficult to understand.

A guard had always meant supervision before. A witness. Someone positioned nearby to ensure you did not wander into rooms that did not belong to you or speak to people your brother had not approved. Someone to report your mistakes before you could hide them.

Colin did not behave like those guards.

He did not follow too closely. He did not question where you were going. He opened doors for you and stood at a distance, always near enough to intervene but never near enough to crowd you. Once, when you had become dizzy in the eastern hall, he had looked away while you steadied yourself against the wall.

You had been grateful for that.

Ashamed, too.

You were ashamed of most things. The weakness in your legs. The way cold settled so deeply into your bones that no amount of blankets seemed to reach it. The way your stomach cramped when you ate too quickly, betraying how little food your body was accustomed to receiving. The way words disappeared the moment someone looked directly at you.

You folded your hands in your lap and tucked your fingers beneath the thin fabric of your sleeves, though there was no warmth to be found there.

Eris had not yet come to the chamber tonight. He usually did not. The room belonged to both of you in name, just as you now belonged to him in name, but neither truth seemed to mean much once the doors shut. He would arrive late enough that you had already gone still beneath the blankets, your eyes closed even if sleep had not come. Some nights, he remained only long enough to change his clothes and collect a book from the table near the hearth. Other nights, he never entered at all.

When he did stay, he slept in the adjoining solar. The chaise there was narrow and stiff-backed, made for afternoon reading rather than rest, but he chose it without complaint. You had heard the servants whisper about it. Some thought Eris was being respectful, others believed he found you undesirable. That possibility made more sense.

You had seen yourself in the mirror before the wedding. You knew what he had been given.

A quiet bride with hollow cheeks and bruises hidden beneath silk. A bride from a ruined family, handed over by a brother eager to secure power through her body. A bride who had stood beside Eris beneath the Equinox banners and struggled not to sway while the priestess spoke.

You barely remembered the ceremony, only the weight of the crown pinned into your hair. The cold air against your face. Aven’s fingers digging into your arm before he walked you forward.

Smile.

You had smiled, you always did when he told you.

A month had passed since then, and still, you did not feel married. There had been no wedding night. No whispered conversation after the guests left. No awkward attempt at intimacy. No softening between two strangers forced into the same life.

Eris had escorted you to the chamber, told you that you could have the bed, and disappeared into the solar. You had sat awake until dawn, waiting for him to return and claim what had been promised to him.

He had not.

The following night had been the same.

Then the next.

Eventually, you stopped waiting in quite the same way. But you never stopped listening. You did not know what Eris thought of you. He was quite difficult to read. His face revealed little beyond annoyance, boredom, and the occasional flash of contempt when Beron entered a room. He spoke carefully. Moved carefully. Even his anger seemed deliberate, contained behind his teeth until he chose to use it.

He had not been cruel to you, not directly. That should have been enough to make you grateful. It was more than Aven had promised, more than you had expected. Yet Eris’s indifference frightened you in a way cruelty never had. Cruelty had rules. Aven’s moods shifted, but there were always patterns. You knew when to lower your gaze. When to apologize. When to make yourself smaller. When silence might protect you and when it would only make him angrier.

Eris gave you nothing.

He avoided you at meals. Left rooms soon after you entered them. Spoke to you only when necessary, and even then, his words were short and formal.

My lady.

Your chambers are prepared.

Dinner is at seven.

You may use the library.

He had never asked what books you liked. Never asked whether you were frightened. Never asked whether you wanted to be here. That last question would have been useless, of course. Want had never determined anything in your life. Still, some part of you had wondered whether he might ask. You did not know what answer you would have given him.

You wanted to make the marriage work. That was what you told yourself. Aven had arranged it. Aven had said it was your final opportunity to prove you could be useful. That the Vanserras were powerful enough to restore what remained of the Carlisle name, if you behaved properly.

Do not embarrass me.

Do not speak unless spoken to.

Do not give him reason to send you back.

You had repeated the rules every morning since arriving. They sat inside your head in Aven’s voice. You wanted to make him happy. The thought still came automatically, though you had never managed it before. Perhaps if Eris accepted you, Aven would finally be satisfied. Perhaps if you became a proper wife, your brother would stop searching for flaws.

Perhaps if you were quiet enough, pleasing enough, grateful enough—

You pressed your lips together as another shiver moved through you. The fire snapped. You flinched before you could stop yourself. For one awful moment, your heart kicked hard against your ribs, and you glanced toward the doors. 

Colin remained outside.

Mira remained in the bathing chamber.

Nothing had happened.

No one was angry.

You took a careful breath, then another. Mira appeared in the bathing chamber doorway, wiping her hands against her apron.

“Your bath is ready, my lady.”

Your stomach tightened as you looked past her. Steam filled the room behind her, clouding the mirrors. Candlelight glowed through it, soft and golden. The tub sat near a second hearth, its copper rim shining. You could feel the heat from where you sat.

Too much.

You rose slowly, your knees almost buckling. Mira had noticed, you saw it in the way her expression shifted before she smoothed it away.

“I can fetch Colin,” she offered gently. “Or call for the healer.”

“No.” The word came out too quickly. You lowered your eyes at once.

“No,” you repeated, softer. “Thank you.”

Mira hesitated.

“I am only tired,” you said. Mira nodded, though you were not certain she believed you.

“Of course.”

You crossed the room carefully, one hand trailing along the bedpost when the floor tilted beneath your feet. The scent of lavender grew stronger near the bathing chamber. You stopped at the threshold.

The water was not cold.

You could tell immediately.

Steam rose from the surface. The fire crackled brightly beneath the mantle. Thick towels had been arranged on a bench, warming near the flames. Your pulse began to race.

“Mira.”

“Yes, my lady?”

You could not look away from the tub. “I think there has been a mistake.”

She followed your gaze. “A mistake?”

“The water.” Her brow creased.

You swallowed.

“It is hot.”

“Not too hot, My Lady, but warm,” she corrected carefully. “I tested it myself.”

You stared at her. She smiled, but only faintly, as though worried any stronger expression might startle you.

“Lord Eris requested that your baths be prepared warm from now on.”

The room seemed to narrow around you.

Eris.

You thought of his controlled face, his clipped voice. The distance he maintained as though even standing too near you was an inconvenience. He had noticed. Somehow, he had noticed.

“What did he say?”

Mira’s brow furrowed again. “Only that the water was to be warm.”

“Was he angry?” The question escaped before you could stop it. Mira went very still, and you wished that you could pull the words back.

“No, my lady.” But she had paused, you heard it. You twisted your fingers together.

“Did he ask why it had been cold?”

Mira looked toward the open chamber doors, then back to you.

“He did.”

Your throat closed.

Aven had been clear, the baths were to remain cold. Not cool, cold. Cold enough to make your teeth chatter. Cold enough that your fingers turned pale and stiff. Cold enough that, even in summer, you would spend hours afterward wrapped in a blanket, unable to stop shaking.

It built discipline, he had said. It corrected softness, it reminded you that comfort was earned. Eris should not have interfered, Aven would hear of it. Someone always told him.

“I cannot,” you whispered.

Mira’s face softened. “My lady—”

“I cannot use it.” The fear in your voice embarrassed you.

You stepped back from the threshold. The heat of the room pressed against your face, and every instinct you had screamed that it was wrong.

Forbidden.

Dangerous.

“Mira, drain it.”

Her eyes widened.

“But Lord Eris ordered—”

“Please.” The word cracked. Pleading rarely helped, but you could not stop. “Please, drain it before he comes.”

Mira opened her mouth just as the bedroom doors opened behind you. You froze, and the silence that followed felt endless. You did not need to turn around to know who had entered. Colin would not have allowed anyone else inside without announcing them.

Boots crossed the floor.

Slow.

Measured.

He stopped somewhere behind you. You stared at the steam rising from the bath and felt Aven’s voice sharpen inside your skull.

Do not give him reason to send you back.

“Before who comes?” Eris asked. He did not speak loudly, though he did not need to.  Your body went still so quickly it felt as though something inside you had simply stopped. The movement of your lungs, the beat of your heart. Even the trembling in your fingers vanished beneath the sharper instinct that took hold whenever a male’s voice came from behind you.

Do not move.

Do not speak.

Do not make it worse.

You kept your eyes fixed on the copper tub. Steam continued to curl above the water, gathering against the mirrors and turning your reflection into a pale, indistinct blur.

Mira shifted beside you.

“My lord,” she said, Eris did not answer her. You could feel him looking at you. This was always the worst part, the waiting. Aven had perfected it.

He would ask a question and let the silence stretch until it became unbearable. Until you started wondering which answer he wanted and whether the truth would anger him more than a lie. Sometimes he had already decided you were guilty before he entered the room. The question was only another way to make you participate in your own punishment.

Your shoulders drew inward. Eris’s boots sounded against the floor again.

One step.

Then another.

He stopped at your side, though not close enough to touch you. You could see the dark fabric of his trousers at the edge of your vision.

“Before who comes?” he repeated.

“I asked her to drain the bath, my lord,” Mira said carefully.

Eris’s attention shifted at last.

“Why?” Mira hesitated.

You wanted to tell her not to answer. You wanted to tell her that she should leave before the blame moved to her. It was your mistake, you had been the one to object. You had been the one to question an order given by the heir of Autumn in his own home.

But your mouth would not open.

Your voice had gone somewhere unreachable.

“She said the water was too warm,” Mira replied.

Eris looked back at you, you knew it without lifting your head.

“Too warm.” It was not a question.

You pressed your fingers together until the bones hurt. Mira’s gaze flicked between the two of you.

“She asked me to drain it before you arrived.”

The silence afterward was worse than any reprimand.

You waited.

For anger.

For disgust.

For Eris to demand that Mira leave and close the doors behind her. Your mind began arranging possible apologies.

I misunderstood.

I did not mean to question you.

It will not happen again.

Please do not send me back.

The last one lodged behind your teeth. You would not say it, you could not. Because if Eris knew how badly you feared returning to Aven, he would know exactly where to wound you.

A hand moved near you.

You flinched.

It was small, barely more than a tightening of your shoulders, but Eris noticed. His hand stopped before it reached the copper rim of the tub. For a moment, none of you moved. Then he lowered it into the water. He submerged his fingers to the knuckles, testing the temperature in silence.

“It's not too hot,” he said.

Your heart began hammering again.

“No, my lord,” Mira answered.

Eris removed his hand and watched water drip from his fingers.

“Then why do you believe it is?”

Mira looked at you, but you continued to stare at the floor.

Eris followed her gaze.

“Leave us.” The words came flat and immediate, making your stomach drop. Mira, thank the cauldron, did not move at once.

“My lord—”

“Wait outside.” There was no cruelty in the command, no raised voice. But there was no softness either. Mira only bowed her head.

“Yes, my lord.” She gathered the empty buckets quickly and crossed the chamber. Her skirts whispered over the floor. The bathing-room door remained open, but you heard the larger bedroom doors close behind her.

Colin was still outside, the guard was there. Though that was a useless comfort. Colin served Eris, everyone here served Eris. You were alone with him now because he had decided you should be.

Your breathing grew shallow. Eris dried his hand on one of the folded towels, taking his time. He did not look at you while he did it. That, somehow, made the waiting worse.

“You asked her to drain the water.”

You nodded, the motion barely visible.

“Why?” You tried to speak, but nothing came.

Eris waited.

“Y/N.” Your name sounded strange in Eris’s voice. He did not use it often. At the ceremony, perhaps. Once during a formal dinner. Most of the time, you were my lady.

Your throat tightened.

He waited again.

You could feel frustration beginning to collect in the room, whether it was real or imagined you could not tell.

“I cannot correct a problem you refuse to explain.”

“I am sorry,” you whispered.

Eris’s jaw tightened. “I did not ask for an apology.”

Your stomach twisted.

“I am sorry.” The second apology came out more quietly. Only his silence followed.

You wished he would shout, that would have been easier. You understood shouting. Silence required interpretation, and interpretation was dangerous.

Eris turned away from you and crossed the bathing chamber to the hearth. You remained where you were. He simply placed another log onto the fire, then adjusted it with the iron poker making sparks rise up the chimney.

“I gave an order this morning,” he said, his back still turned.  You stared at the firelight moving over the floor.

“Yes, my lord.”

“You know this.”

“Yes.”

“Then why did you instruct Mira to disobey?”

The question struck like a blow and you went cold all over.

“I did not mean—” Your voice failed when Eris looked over his shoulder. You stopped speaking immediately. His expression did not change.

“You did not mean what?”

You could hear Aven in the question. You could see the dining hall at home. His hands braced against the table. Your plate untouched before you because he had decided you had not earned the meal.

What did you mean, then?

Eris set the poker down. The clang of metal against stone made you flinch again.

“I asked you a question,” he said.

Your lips parted, but no sound came out. Eris studied you, then he took a slow breath through his nose. His face remained controlled, but something altered behind his eyes. Not gentleness, but recognition perhaps.

He stepped backward.

“I am not going to punish you.”

You looked at him before you could stop yourself, if only for a second. His face was calm, impenetrable. The words should have helped, but didn't. You had heard it said before. Usually before explaining that what followed was not punishment, but correction.

Your eyes dropped again.

Eris must have seen the disbelief.

“I will not touch you.”

Your fingers curled into the sleeves of your nightgown, drawing his attention toward them.

“I will not send for your brother.”

Your head lifted, panic rising immediately. You stepped back, your heel caught against the threshold between the bedroom and bathing chamber. Eris moved instinctively, one hand coming forward as though to steady you. You recoiled so violently that your shoulder struck the doorframe.

Pain shot down your arm.

Eris stopped, his hand remained suspended between you for half a breath before he lowered it. He looked at the place where your shoulder had hit, then at your face.

“You are afraid of me.”

It was not phrased as a question. There was no safe answer for this.  If you said yes, you insulted him. If you said no, you lied.

Eris turned his gaze away first, his expression closed again. “I had assumed my distance would make this easier.”

Your heartbeat thudded in your ears.

Distance, that was what he called it. You had called it disgust. Eris walked to the small table near the hearth and poured water into a glass. He did not offer it to you, had only set it on the edge of the table instead. Close enough that you could reach it if you wanted.

“I did not want this marriage,” he said. The words should not have hurt. You had known, everyone had known. Still, something hollow opened beneath your ribs.

You lowered your eyes.

“I know.” It was the clearest thing you had said all night.

Eris looked at you. “I suspect you did not either.”

“I understand what this is,” you whispered.

“Do you?” The question made you freeze again. Eris exhaled, he seemed to realize too late what his tone had done. But he did not apologize. He leaned one hand against the back of a chair instead, keeping the furniture between you.

“What do you believe this is?”

A contract.

A duty.

A punishment.

A final opportunity to be useful.

You could not say any of those things.

“My marriage,” you said finally.

He did not push further this time, but looked toward the bath instead. He gestured toward the tub. “Explain why warm water frightens you.”

You looked at the steam, at the folded towels, at the fire. Your chest tightened so painfully you pressed a hand against it.

Eris waited, again. His silence lacked the pressure it had carried before. You could not give him the whole truth. The words were too tangled with shame. So you gave him the smallest piece.

“Aven did not allow it.”

The fire snapped between you.

“Did not allow what?”

“Warm baths.”

“For how long?”

Your mouth went dry, you did not answer.

“For how long, Y/N?”

You stared at the copper rim of the tub. “Since I was young.”

Eris’s expression did not change immediately.

“I am sorry,” you said at once. “I know the order here is different. I should not have questioned it. Mira did nothing wrong. Please do not punish her.”

Eris stared at you. Then, very carefully, he said, “I am not angry with Mira.”

He stepped away from the chair.

You stiffened.

He stopped, his gaze dropping briefly to the floor between you, measuring the distance.

“Nor am I angry with you.”

You did not believe him.

Eris looked toward the bath once more. Then, he reached for the chair and dragged it several feet back from the doorway, positioning it near the hearth but facing away from the tub.

“I will remain here until you are finished.”

Your eyes widened.

He sat, the chair creaked beneath his weight. He picked up a book from the table and opened it without looking at you.

“You may leave the door open.”

He turned one page.

“You may close it.”

Another page.

“You may ask Mira to return.”

His eyes remained on the book.

“Or you may send us both away.” Eris’s voice lowered, though it did not soften.

“The bath will stay warm.”

You looked at the water again.

Your fear remained.

So did Aven’s voice.

But for the first time, another voice stood against it.

You wrapped your arms around yourself. “Will you tell him?”

Eris’s fingers stopped against the page.

“Your brother? No.” The answer came without hesitation.

You watched him carefully.

“Will anyone?”

“No.”

“How can you know?” Eris closed the book he held.

“Because this is my household.”

A chill ran through you despite the heat.

“And because,” he added, “your brother has no authority here.”

The words should have been comforting. Instead, they left you standing between two kinds of fear. The power Aven had always held over you, and the power Eris now claimed in its place. 

He reopened the book.

“You do not have to believe me tonight. But the water will remain warm tomorrow.”

The fire crackled.

Steam filled the bathing chamber.

The main hall of the Forest House had become unrecognizable.

Fire climbed the carved pillars in bright, ravenous tongues, devouring tapestries and curling around ancient wood without reducing any of it to ash. It moved without reason or discipline, feeding wherever Eris’s attention fractured. One moment, the flames crowded the vaulted ceiling; the next, they spilled across the marble floor in branching rivers, seeping into every crack the heat had torn through the stone.

The enchanted windows had gone black with smoke. The chandeliers overhead sagged beneath the temperature, droplets of molten gold falling from their frames and hardening against the floor. The great doors had been sealed by Eris’s own hand, reinforced with enough magic that the guards outside would have needed an army to breach them.

Or another High Lord.

Eris dropped to one knee when the next surge struck. His hand slammed against the scorched floor before the rest of him could follow, fingers splayed against stone hot enough to blister any ordinary male. Pain tore through his veins, vast and merciless, as though something had reached inside him and replaced his blood with molten metal.

He gritted his teeth until his jaw ached. A broken sound forced its way from his throat and fire exploded from him in a widening circle. It struck the far wall, marble cracking with a sound like splitting bone.

Eris stared at the damage through the haze shimmering over the hall. For one disjointed moment, he could not remember whether anyone had been standing there.

No, he had ordered everyone out hadn’t he?

The memory came in fragments. Sir Barriston shouting something from the doorway. Lucien being dragged back by one of the sentries when he had tried to follow. The guards hesitating, terrified to abandon their new High Lord and more terrified to remain near him.

Eris had sealed the doors before any of them could decide.

“Get out!”

The command tore from him, though there was no one left to obey it.

His voice struck the walls and returned distorted.

Get out.

Get out.

Get out.

He did not know whether he was warning the court beyond those doors or the power clawing through his body.

His magic had always been precise. Even as a boy, he had understood that fire was not merely destruction. Fire could be narrowed, directed, starved, fed. A flame no larger than a candle could become a blade if wielded with enough control.

Beron had demanded control.

Beron had beaten it into him when instruction failed.

And now Beron’s power raged beneath Eris’s skin without any intention of being mastered.

The inheritance did not settle into him, it invaded. It filled every hollow place Beron had carved into him over the centuries and forced those wounds wider. It burrowed beneath bone, wrapped around his heart, and scorched its way through memories he had spent a lifetime locking away.

High Lord, the magic whispered. The words seemed to come from everywhere. From the burning pillars, the groaning walls, the blood pounding behind his eyes.

High Lord of Autumn.

Eris forced himself upright, legs nearly failing him. He staggered, caught himself against the nearest pillar, and jerked his hand away when the wood splintered beneath his grip.

His tunic had burned through at the collar. What remained hung in blackened strips from his shoulders, damp with sweat and blood he could not remember shedding. Smoke curled from his forearms. Each breath scraped through his lungs, bringing ash with it.

This should have been victory. Beron was dead. The male who had poisoned Autumn for centuries was dead. The tyrant who had turned his sons against one another, brutalized his wife, and ruled through fear had finally bled upon the floor of his own court.

Eris had ended him. He had done what he had spent centuries preparing to do. Yet there was no triumph in it, no peace. There was only the empty weight inside his chest and the unbearable knowledge that he had been too late.

His power surged again.

This time, Eris did not fight it quickly enough. Fire raced up the walls and consumed what remained of the banners bearing his father’s crest. The embroidered stag vanished behind orange flame, its proud shape blackening before Eris’s eyes.

For half a heartbeat, the sight satisfied him.

Then the burning fabric folded inward.

It collapsed like a body.

Like yours had.

The hall around him disappeared. He saw Beron’s fingers twisted into your hair. Dirt ground into the remains of your clothing. Bruises darkening beneath blood. Your body held upright only because his father had refused to let you fall.

He heard the crack again.

Small.

Final.

The sound your neck had made had been so much quieter than the roar that followed it, his roar. He remembered reaching you. He remembered tearing Beron away, though he could not recall whether he had used his hands or his fire. He remembered gathering you against him and knowing immediately that there was nothing left to save.

Your weight had settled into his arms without resistance. Your head had fallen against his shoulder. Your hand—Cauldron, your hand—had hung limp beside his knee.

He had called your name.

Once.

Twice.

Again and again, until it had ceased sounding like a name and become nothing more than a plea no god had answered. Then you had burned. Not from Beron’s power, not from his either. Light had cracked beneath your skin, brilliant and golden, before fire consumed everything he had left to hold.

One moment, you had been in his arms. The next, there had been ash scattered across his hands. Eris looked down at those hands now, they were trembling. His nails dug against his palms hard enough to split the skin. Blood welled between his fingers, only to hiss into steam before a single drop could fall.

He had not even been allowed to bury you.

A burial would have given him somewhere to go. Somewhere to kneel when the court became too loud and the Forest House too empty. Somewhere to place the gifts he had never found the courage to give you.

Instead, the last of you had slipped through his fingers.

Another wave of power tore through him. Eris bowed over it with a strangled gasp. The floor cracked beneath his boots. Flame burst from his shoulders and spiraled toward the ceiling, wild enough that the chandeliers shuddered on their chains.

He had failed you. That truth burned worse than the inheritance. He had spent months promising himself he would get you free. Every measured kindness, every secret arrangement, every quiet conversation behind locked doors had been another piece of a plan he had believed himself clever enough to complete.

He had mistaken patience for safety. He had believed that because he understood Beron, he could anticipate him. Then Beron had killed you while Eris was still maneuvering pieces across the board.

A violent impact shook the sealed doors.

Eris’s head snapped toward them.

“Leave!”

The command shredded his throat.

Silence answered.

Then—

A click.

Small enough that he nearly mistook it for the settling of heated metal. The iron latch lifted and Eris straightened slowly.

Impossible, the doors were bound by his power. No soldier could have opened them. No servant would have dared try. The hinges groaned and a narrow seam appeared between the doors.  Smoke rolled toward it as though the hall itself were exhaling.

“No.” Eris did not know whom he was speaking to.

The figure beyond the threshold stepped forward. Panic struck before recognition could. Fire surged around him, building into a wall that stretched from floor to ceiling. It roared between Eris and the doorway, a living barricade hot enough to distort everything beyond it.

“Get out!”

The figure did not retreat. A bare foot crossed the threshold and touched the scorched marble. Eris’s heart stumbled as he caught the scent a moment later.

Amber.

Vanilla.

Cinnamon.

His body knew it before his mind could invent another explanation.

No.

Grief was cruel. He had seen men lose themselves to it before. Heard of widows who glimpsed dead husbands in crowded streets, mothers who woke to the sound of children long buried. His father’s power was breaking him apart from the inside. Perhaps his mind had simply begun to follow.

That was all this was, a hallucination conjured from smoke and longing.

The shape moved farther into the hall. Fabric brushed against your legs, pale beneath soot and badly damaged along the hem. The dress had been torn in places and scorched in others, as though whatever path had carried you here had led through flame.

Eris could not look away.

Your hair was loose, disordered from smoke and heat, but he refused to linger on it. He was afraid the smallest detail would prove false. Afraid that if he looked too closely, the vision would dissolve and leave him staring at an empty doorway.

You continued walking. The flames bent toward you, not attacking but reaching. You passed through the first veil of smoke, and he saw your face. Not as Beron had left it. There was no blood upon your mouth. No dirt ground into your skin. No terrible, unnatural angle to your neck.

You were upright, breathing, alive.

“No,” Eris whispered.

The word collapsed beneath its own weight. His magic recoiled with him, the towering wall of flame shrinking a fraction before flaring again. You halted several paces away. Your gaze moved over him, catching on the ruined clothing, the smoke rising from his body, the flames snapping from his hands. A crease formed between your brows.

Concern.

You were looking at him with concern, as though he were the one who had been broken.

“Eris.”

His name reached him through the roar of the hall. He had imagined your voice every night since losing you. He had woken expecting to hear you in the corridor. Had turned when servants spoke too softly because, for one humiliating heartbeat, he believed it might be you.

None of those memories had sounded like this. Your voice was roughened, uncertain, real. Then you took another step and spoke the name you had made only for him.

“Fox.”

Something inside Eris tore open. There was no gentle unfolding. No warm thread gradually revealing itself between two souls. It slammed into him with enough force to drive him back a step.

Gold flashed behind his eyes.

A cord snapped taut between his chest and yours, sinking past flesh, past bone, past every defense he had constructed over centuries. It hooked into something older than thought and pulled. Eris clutched at his sternum, the magic inside him roared in recognition.

Mate.

Mate.

His knees threatened to buckle.

Mate.

You.

Of course it was you.

The realization arrived with such brutal clarity that Eris nearly laughed. Every moment he had spent resisting you, every act of kindness he had disguised as strategy, every hour he had lain awake thinking of the room where you slept—none of it had been accidental. Some part of him had known. Not enough to save you, but enough to be destroyed by losing you. 

Across the space between you, your hand rose to your chest. Your own breath caught. Your eyes widened, filled with the same shock threatening to drown him. Golden tears gathered along your lashes as you looked at him, and Eris knew you felt it too.

He felt your recognition pulse down the bond.

Warm.

Startled.

Alive.

You stepped toward him.

“No.”

The response was immediate.

Eris moved back as fire surged between you, protective instinct colliding with desperate need. Every part of him demanded that he cross the distance, gather you against him, and never permit the world to take you again. But his power was still unstable. 

The floor had split beneath him. Stone walls had cracked. Solid gold was melting from the ceiling. You had only just returned to him, he would not be the reason you died twice.

“Don’t,” he said.

Pain sharpened your expression.

“Eris—”

“Do not come closer.” The command should have sounded firm. Instead, his voice fractured around the final word. 

A burst of flame shot from his hand before he could restrain it. It struck the floor between you with a deafening crack. Stone splintered upward. Fire rushed through the new fissure, carving a burning line across the hall. Eris stared at the destruction, then at you. You had not moved, not even when the flame struck.

His pulse hammered against his throat. “I cannot control it.”

You looked from the broken floor to his shaking hand.

“You need to leave,” he forced out.

A tear slipped down your cheek.

“You would never hurt me.” The certainty in your voice frightened him more than the fire.

“You do not know that.”

“I do.” Your gaze held his even as another tremor passed through the hall.

Eris wanted to argue. Wanted to command you out and lock the doors again. He had spent his entire life learning how to make others obey him. You had never been especially talented at it.

Before he could speak, you stepped over the burning fracture in the floor. The flames curled around your bare ankle. Eris’s heart stopped. He reached for his power instinctively, desperate to wrench it away from you, but the fire did not burn.

It climbed around you in ribbons of orange and gold, tracing the air beside your body without touching the damaged fabric. The flames leaned toward you as hounds might lean into a familiar hand.

You walked through them. Not untouched by heat, but welcomed by it. Eris could only stare. His magic, which had been clawing through him without mercy, quieted as you approached. Not completely. Power still crowded his bones, immense and painful, but its frenzy softened. The violent pressure behind his ribs eased enough for him to draw a full breath.

You were calming it.

No.

It was calming for you.

You stopped within reach. Up close, there could be no mistaking you for a phantom. Ash marked one of your legs. A small cut crossed your knee. Your dress hung in ruined folds, and the hand you held near your chest trembled despite the courage that had carried you through the fire.

Eris looked for some sign of Beron’s violence. His gaze went immediately to your throat. The skin there was unbroken. He remembered the sound, his stomach twisting at the memory. 

“I came back,” you whispered.

A broken noise left him. He despised it the moment he heard it, despised the helplessness exposed within it. Though there was no strength left to conceal anything from you.

His hand lifted.

It shook so badly that he nearly forced it back to his side.

“Y/N.”

You reached for him first, fingers closing around his wrist. Warmth met his skin. Not the heat of flame, not magic. The living warmth of your hand wrapped around him, your pulse beating beneath your touch.

Eris forgot how to breathe. Warm, you were warm. His knees nearly gave beneath him. Your thumb moved over the inside of his wrist in one soft stroke. The contact sent another wave through the bond, gentler than the first but far more intimate.

He felt you.

Not your thoughts, not words. Something deeper and less easily concealed. The trembling relief beneath your composure, the grief clinging to it, and an affection so fierce that it hurt to receive.

“You’re real,” he said.

Your mouth trembled before a watery laugh escaped you. “I should hope so.”

His vision blurred. Eris frowned, not understanding the distortion until you raised your free hand. Your palm settled against his cheek, thumb catching a tear. He had not known he was crying. He might have denied it to anyone else. But you were standing before him after he had held your corpse.

There was no dignity left worth protecting.

Whatever control remained inside him shattered.

Eris caught you around the waist. He dragged you against him with enough force to make you gasp, one arm locking around your back while the other cradled the base of your skull. For one terrible instant, he feared you might vanish beneath his hands.

You did not.

Your body struck his and remained there.

Solid.

Warm.

Alive.

Your arms wound around his neck. You clung to him just as fiercely, your face pressing into the scorched remains of his tunic as his power rolled across the hall. The fire did not rise with it, the flames lowered. They curled away from the two of you, bowing toward the floor as though unwilling to touch what he held.

Eris buried his face against you and breathed. Your scent filled his lungs until it pushed out the smoke, the blood, and the memory of ash spilling across his hands.

A sob tore from him. It wrenched from a place Beron had spent centuries teaching him to bury. His arms tightened around you until some distant part of him warned that he might be hurting you. He loosened his hold by a fraction, only a fraction.

“I held you,” he rasped. “I held you, and you were—”

The words failed.

“I know.” Your voice broke against his shoulder.

“You were gone.”

“I know.”

“You left me.”

The accusation escaped before Eris could stop it. Shame followed instantly. You had not chosen to die. You had not abandoned him. Beron had taken you, and Eris had failed to prevent it. But beneath the High Lord, beneath the heir and the strategist and every title he had worn like armor, something younger and far less reasonable had been left kneeling in the ashes.

Your hold tightened.

“I'm sorry Fox.” You did not correct him, did not ask him to be fair. You merely held him while he grieved against you.

Eris pulled back far enough to see your face. His hands rose to frame it, unsteady as his fingertips traced the places he remembered injured. Your cheek. Your jaw. The unmarked line of your throat. He needed to confirm each part. Needed proof that the broken body in his arms had not been the final version of you the world would ever know.

“Do not do that to me again.” The demand emerged as a plea.

Your tears spilled over. “I didn't mean to die.”

A laugh broke from him. It was an awful sound, sharp with disbelief, torn open by grief. He bowed his head as it caught in his throat. Then you laughed too, the sound tangled with a sob. The absurdity of it struck him all over again. You had died. Returned through fire. Walked barefoot into a burning hall while he lost control of a High Lord’s power.

And you were apologizing for the inconvenience.

Eris pressed his forehead to yours. The bond pulsed between you, radiant and undeniable.

“You’re my mate,” he whispered. The truth felt too large for speech. Saying it aloud reduced it to three insufficient words.

Your eyes closed.

“I know.” A faint smile trembled across your mouth. It was that smile that undid the last of his restraint.

Eris kissed you. There was nothing measured in it. No courtly grace, no carefully tested pressure or patient invitation. His mouth found yours with the desperation of a male who had already lost you once and required immediate proof that death had released its claim.

Your fingers slid into his hair.

You rose into the kiss with a small, fractured sound, and Eris tightened his hand against the back of your neck. His other arm remained firm around your waist, holding you close enough that he could feel each breath you took.

The bond blazed between you. Relief flooded through it—his or yours, he could not tell. Grief followed. Desire flickered beneath both, sharp enough to steal what little breath remained to him.

But stronger than any of it was recognition.

You were here.

You were his mate.

And you had returned.

When the kiss finally broke, Eris did not release you. He rested his brow against yours, breathing hard while your fingers remained tangled in his hair. Around you, the flames had quieted to a low, steady burn.

“The whole house is likely in panic.” you murmured.

Eris glanced toward the sealed doors.

He could feel them now. Guards gathered beyond the hall. Lucien’s power pressed against the wards. Sir Barriston was likely deciding whether loyalty required him to break down the doors or trust that Eris had not burned alive behind them.

“Let them panic.”

Your breath brushed his mouth as you smiled.

Eris stared at it.

He had been starved of that expression for longer than the few days since your death. Beron had been eroding it for months. Your brothers' cruelty had begun the work long before you ever entered the Forest House.

No one would take it from you again.

The thought settled into him with dangerous calm. His power responded. The flames throughout the hall lowered in unison, shrinking along the pillars and retreating from the walls. Heat remained, but it no longer clawed at the room. The inheritance that had seemed intent on tearing him apart folded closer to his bones.

High Lord.

The title remained.

But it no longer sounded like Beron’s voice.

You watched his expression sharpen. “What are you thinking?”

Eris’s thumb moved along your jaw before dropping to the scorched edge of your dress. His gaze tracked each tear in the fabric, each stain of soot, each small indication of what your return had cost.

“That no one will ever touch you again.”

He did not raise his voice, did not need to. The promise carried the weight of the court now sleeping beneath his skin. Something changed in your expression. Love, perhaps. Grief certainly. But there was caution too, and Eris knew at once that his vow had not comforted you in the way he intended.

Your hand settled over his heart.

It still raced beneath your palm.

“Do not shut me out, Fox.”

The request entered the same wound your death had opened.

Eris had spent centuries protecting others by excluding them. Secrecy had kept Lucien alive. Distance had shielded his mother when affection would have given Beron another weapon. Every plan Eris made had compartments, and every person he loved was kept outside the most dangerous of them.

He had done the same to you. He had told himself ignorance would keep you safe, and Beron had proven him wrong.

Eris closed his eyes. He allowed himself one breath with his forehead resting against yours, one moment to feel the bond humming beneath the hand you had placed over his heart. When he opened his eyes again, the last of the uncontrolled flames withdrew.

The doors remained sealed. The hall remained ruined. Beron remained dead, and the weight of Autumn still waited for Eris beyond this room.

But you were alive in his arms.

“Never again,” he said.

The words did not belong to a prince bargaining for time.

They belonged to the High Lord of Autumn.

To your mate.