The world went white.
Not with pain.
Not with fear.
But with a brightness that felt like a held breath finally exhaled.
Her knees weakened. Her hands slipped. The room fell away.
She tried to draw in air — but the air was gone, replaced by light and heat and pressure, as though she were being pulled through the crack between one heartbeat and the next.
A low hum filled her ears, vibrating through bone, through marrow, through memory.
Lucarion's arms were still around her—
and then they weren't.
And then nothing was.
The floor vanished beneath her feet.
She stood on something smooth, cold, polished — stone that reflected no light, yet shone.
The air smelled of iron and storm.
Lightning flickered somewhere far, far above, though no sky enclosed her.
Silence reigned.
Except for—
It was there.
The presence she had felt her whole life but never understood.
The presence that had watched her in childhood fever, in night terrors, in the brush between dreaming and waking.
The presence she had mistaken for fear, for madness, for loneliness.
Her senses sharpened, every nerve pulled taut.
She turned. Slowly.
As though her body already knew what she would see.
And there it stood.
A figure of molten metal and shadow, tall and narrow and utterly still.
Its surface shifted — black iron, then gold, then ember-red, as if a forge breathed beneath its skin.
No face, only the impression of one.
No eyes, only two dim coals burning steady in the dark.
A sentinel.
A watcher.
Not new.
Not summoned.
Revealed.
Her breath hitched. Her body did not move. If she could have stepped back, she might have — but her legs no longer belonged entirely to her.
The figure didn't approach.
It didn't raise a hand.
It didn't impose.
It simply watched her.
And in that gaze — in that impossible, soundless, motionless watching — she felt something cold and holy settle inside her chest.
Not protection.
Not comfort.
Not danger.
Recognition.
The Sentinel bowed its head — the faintest incline, a gesture old as iron.
As if saying: At last.
A pulse tore through her — gold, hot, blazing — the same molten light racing through her veins in the waking world. It surged up her spine, up her throat, up her skull until her vision burned white.
Her hearing collapsed into a roar — like a forge door thrown open.
The stone cracked beneath her feet.
The Sentinel did not move.
But she felt it: A line drawn between them. Old as war. Binding as oath. Final as death.
Her lungs seized.
The world shattered—
—
Eva's body jerked once — not violently, but with a sudden, unnatural precision, as though something inside her had snapped taut beneath Lucarion's hands.
Her marks glowed bright gold beneath his lips, bright enough to paint his jaw in reflected light.
"Eva."
His voice broke against her skin.
Her breath raced.
Her pulse hammered against his palm — faster, faster—
Then suddenly steady.
Too steady.
Her eyelids flickered with a light that did not belong to the room.
"Eva—" His voice sharpened, instinct fighting the unfamiliar fear threading through him.
She wasn't waking.
She wasn't dreaming.
She was gone.
Her body lay warm in his arms, but something in her — the thing he felt through the mark, through the bond, through the blood — had gone somewhere he could not follow.
And something ancient pressed back through the connection.
Not hostile.
Not violent.
But vast.
As though her blood had opened a door and a wind older than kingdoms breathed through it.
His heartbeat stumbled.
His fingers tightened around her waist.
Her skin glowed again — faint, molten gold, coursing up her neck, her jaw, the line of her throat.
Her breath returned in a sharp, trembling gasp.
Her fingers twitched.
Her eyes—
Darkness fell.
Not the absence of light — but the closing of a door.
—
The Sentinel remained exactly where it had stood.
Unblinking.
Unchanged.
Yet she felt something shift.
A bond.
A thread.
A path.
Her name whispered through the dark — not aloud, but through the chest, the bone, the blood.
Not the Sentinel's voice.
Someone else.
Someone waiting for her.
The molten light inside her flared: Come back.
The ground split.
Light surged upward—
And she fell.
—
Eva inhaled sharply, her whole body arching once against him as though her soul snapped back into place.
Her marks shone brilliantly — then dimmed to a steady, unmistakable gold.
Her breathing steadied.
Her lashes fluttered open — dazed, glassy, shimmering with a color that had not been there before.
Lucarion froze.
The bond thrummed through him like a pulse felt in the teeth.
She stared up at him, disoriented but alive.
Something… shifted in the air.
As if someone else were still watching.
For a long moment, neither of them moved.
Lucarion held perfectly still, every sense sharpened to a blade's edge.
The air felt stretched thin, as if something immense had only just withdrawn, leaving the room too small for what had passed through it.
Her lashes fluttered once more.
Her breath steadied.
But the echo stayed.
A presence, fading… but not gone.
Lucarion exhaled slowly — the first breath he had taken in far too long. He gathered her gently, her weight softening in his arms as her pulse settled into something mortal once more.
Outside, thunder muttered a final time as the storm began to ebb.
Eva's breath evened, her pulse settling into a calm, slow rhythm that brushed faintly through the bond. The gold along her neck dimmed, leaving only the two marks — clear, exact, permanent.
He lifted her carefully — one arm beneath her knees, the other supporting her back. She stirred only once, a faint sound escaping her lips before sleep pulled her under again, deep and absolute.
He carried her from the solar with careful steps, as though the slightest jolt might undo whatever fragile equilibrium had been restored. The corridors were quiet, rainlight dimming in the windows as the storm loosened its hold on the palace.
In her chamber, he lowered her onto the bed with a care that felt foreign in his own hands. He drew the blanket over her, smoothing it along her shoulder, his fingers lingering briefly above the faint glow still pulsing beneath her skin.
Then he sat beside her.
For minutes.
For hours.
Time blurred.
The hush of the fading storm became part of his breathing. The fire sank from flame to ember. Her chest rose and fell in steady rhythm, sometimes catching on a dream, sometimes softening into stillness. Her lashes trembled. Her aura fluttered — wild, then quiet again.
He watched.
Not as a commander ensuring stability.
Not as a prince executing duty.
But as a man who felt something unsteady in his ribs every time her pulse brushed his.
Only when the strange hum beneath her skin softened into something quiet and wholly familiar did he rise.
Behind him, the last of the stormlight dimmed.
He crossed the room to the writing desk. By then, dusk had gathered in the corners, turning the air to amber glass.
His hand moved in steady rhythm across the parchment, ink flowing in clean, deliberate strokes. The quill whispered like breath.
Across the room, Eva slept.
Her hair spilled over the pillow like a pale shadow. Her skin glimmered faintly, the newly healed marks at her throat glowing gold in the lamplight. They pulsed softly with her heartbeat.
The double mark. Unintended. Unbidden. Undeniably his.
He watched her for a moment — the thought stirring something low in his chest — before returning to the letter.
The words were formal, but beneath their precision lay a weight that was not duty alone.
To His Majesty, King Thalric of House Vaelthar,
The mark has taken.
It settled swiftly and without resistance. The bond holds steady — strong enough that none will be able to question it.
By tomorrow, the signs will be visible to any who look. Even the elders of your court will see that it is complete.
One matter worth noting: the mark manifested in two seals instead of one. The effect appears to have strengthened the connection.
You may proceed with confidence.
— Lucarion of House Vaelthar
He let the ink dry, the lamplight mirrored in its sheen.
For a long while he didn't seal it.
His gaze drifted again toward the bed — toward her stillness, toward the quiet hum that brushed beneath his ribs.
It was supposed to be a mark of allegiance. Political. Necessary. Inevitable.
Yet as he watched the faint gold shimmer across her throat, he knew it had become something else entirely.
He set the seal at last, pressing the insignia of his house into the black wax. It gleamed faintly before cooling to a dull sheen.
He leaned back in the chair, the room dimming around him.
Outside, the last of the storm clouds burned at the horizon.
And the world beyond the window seemed almost at peace.
Almost.