The Weight of Conditions
Alina drifted toward him with slow, deliberate grace, her boots whispering against the stone floor. The air between them carried the taste of night and tension. The wind caught strands of her pink hair and sent them dancing across her face—soft and luminous under the fractured moonlight, like silk brushed by flame.
Her eyes never left his. Those sharp, cutting eyes sliced through the dark and held Leon in place, scouring him with quiet precision. She studied the calm line of his jaw, the subtle angle of his head, the composed stillness behind those golden eyes that watched all but gave nothing back. There was strength in her posture, tempered by habit and battle-but somewhere beneath, something stirred. A question. A shadow of hurt. Possibly the ghost of a challenge.
