Lysara heard the water before she saw him.

  A thin stream cut through the trees, clear and fast, stones pale beneath its surface. The forest leaned inward here, branches catching the light, leaves whispering softly as if they knew better than to intrude.

  Xyrion knelt at the bank.

  He had shed his outer layers and rolled his sleeves to the forearm. Water slid over his hands as he washed, slow and methodical, the motion precise enough to feel ritual rather than necessity. Nothing hurried him. Nothing ever seemed to.

  Sunlight threaded through the canopy and caught in his hair, dark strands pulled back loosely at the nape of his neck. His face, stripped of court and uniform and watchful eyes, was still unreadable. Beautiful, yes—but closed. Like a blade left sheathed not for safety, but for certainty.

  Lysara stopped before she meant to.

  She told herself she was only observing. That this was academic, the way she observed everything. Her chest tightened anyway.

  He was flawless in a way that did not invite touch.

  Water beaded on his skin and slid away without lingering. Even the light seemed unable to stay on him for long. He existed as a boundary—seen, acknowledged, never crossed.

  And without warning, her mother rose in her mind.

  Not as she remembered her—laughing softly, fingers always warm—but as others must have seen her. Pink eyes glowing gently. A smile too open. Beauty worn like an offering. A softness the world leaned toward instinctively.

  This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Reached for.

  Claimed.

  A prize.

  Lysara swallowed.

  Xyrion’s beauty was sharper. It did not soften a room; it stilled it. It did not promise anything. It refused.

  That was the difference.

  Her mother had been hunted because she could be wanted.

  Xyrion could be wanted forever and never taken.

  The unfairness of it burned low and quiet in Lysara’s chest. Not anger. Something older. Grief with edges. Why had warmth invited hands, while cold commanded distance?

  A stone shifted beneath her boot.

  Xyrion looked up instantly.

  His gaze locked onto her with that amber steadiness—predator awareness, yes, but threaded with calculation. Recognition. Then restraint, just enough to pass for calm.

  “You’ve been standing there a while.”

  Heat rushed to her cheeks. “I—I didn’t mean to—”

  “It’s fine.” He straightened, water dripping from his hands, posture settling back into itself like armor reassembled. “You’re not disturbing anything.”

  She nodded. Her eyes lingered a fraction too long before she looked away.

  As she turned to leave, the thought followed her like a shadow:

  If my mother had worn beauty like his—

  She didn’t finish it.

  She crossed the riverbank and continued downstream, putting distance between herself and the others—between herself and him. Far enough to breathe. Far enough to clean and steady herself.

  The quiet came first.

  Not silence, but a thinning. The river’s rush dulled at the edges. The forest’s color softened, greens losing their sharpness, shadows bleeding toward ash.

  Not gone.

  Just… less.

  Her gaze caught on a darker break ahead, where the ground dipped and the light refused to settle properly. Everything around it felt muted, as if the world were already pulling away.

  Something there held weight it shouldn’t.

  Her focus tightened.

  Her hand dropped to the dagger at her hip as she shifted direction, already moving, already tracking, slipping into the brush without sound.

  All other thoughts fell away.