The ball was as exhausting as ever.
Endless faces. Painted smiles. Voices that meant nothing.
Rowan D'Arvis, Duke of the North, stood like a statue carved from shadow and grace—tall, powerful, dangerous. Nobles flocked around him like moths to a flame, whispering, flattering, terrified even as they smiled.
He didn't care.
He hadn't cared in two years.
Not since he disappeared.
Not since Cael vanished like mist between his fingers.
He should be used to this by now—the longing, the ache, the ghost of a name lodged like a thorn in his throat.
But then—
his eyes drifted lazily across the ballroom.
And stopped.
There, just beyond the lights.
Standing beside the twin princes—those monsters everyone feared.
A man.
Masked. Still. Wrapped in plain black cloth and silver trim. Nothing impressive at all. Ordinary.
Except—
The moment their eyes met—
Something cracked.
Rowan couldn't breathe.
His chest went tight. His world, loud and gilded and full of people, collapsed into a single heartbeat.
It was him. It had to be.
The color was wrong. Brown hair, not black. Earthy eyes, not blue.
But he knew that posture. That sharp, careful stillness. That look that tried to hide fear with steel.
Cael.
His Cael.
Two years. Two long, godless years of searching. Of dead ends. Of empty rooms and abandoned beds.
Now—now he was here?
Rowan didn't think.
He moved.
The nobles' voices blurred. The music vanished. His body pushed forward before his mind could catch up.
He wasn't sure.
He couldn't be.
But his soul screamed:
Don't let him go.
Even if it wasn't Cael—
Even if it was just a hallucination from the madness—
He would find out.
Because if there was even the smallest chance...
He couldn't lose him again.