The field lay quiet in the hush of afternoon, tucked just beyond a line of gnarled trees where palace guards patrolling the perimeter rarely bothered to look. The scent of turned earth drifted from the farmland nearby, mingling with the sweetness of wildflowers that swayed in lazy defiance of the breeze. A clearing—familiar now. They had met here times before, and so he had come again, message still unread in his satchel, detour etched into muscle memory more than choice.

Katerina stood across from him, steel in hand. Not borrowed—her own. A blade narrow and elegant, like its wielder.

Her gown, pale lavender today, was hardly suited for sparring, but she wore it anyway, boots peeking beneath the hem as she pivoted. She had refused to dress appropriately for these lessons, but it didn’t erase the fact that her grip had strengthened, her footwork sharpened. She was learning because of him.

Thallan smiled to himself as he circled her, sword low. “Keep your balance. You’re favoring your left—see how it pulls your stance wide.”

She adjusted, mirroring his posture. “Like this?”

“Better,” he murmured, nodding. “If you were anyone else, I’d say you’re becoming dangerous.”

A laugh ghosted past her lips as their blades touched again, metal singing gently. Then, as they paused to reset, she asked, casual in tone but not in intent, “What did you say to Lord Wright?”

Thallan blinked. “I said nothing.”

Her brow lifted, surprise flickering across her face. “You said nothing?”

He took the opening and stepped forward, tapping her chest lightly with the blunt edge of his blade. “Don’t let your guard down.”

Before he could retreat, her leg swept beneath him, catching his ankle. The world tilted and he landed on his back with a breathless grunt, the weight of her sudden and warm as she straddled him, skirts flaring like a stormcloud above the ground. 

She pressed the flat of her sword against his collarbone. “Don’t let your guard down,” she said with a grin. 

Sunlight dappled her cheeks, catching in the silver embroidery of the ribbon she wore. It fluttered against the wind, pale lavender to match her gown. A peony was stitched delicately at its end, the petals inked with thread so fine it shimmered. He watched it, dazed, almost absently, even as her fingers traced slowly down his chest, then lower still—one slipping between the heat of her thighs to tease at the fastenings of his trousers.

He reached up—not to touch her, not this time—but to run his fingers over the embroidery. The flower. The initials. V.E.

He’d seen that flower before.

The ring on her bedside table, golden and too ornate to be worn without intention. A raised metal peony atop it, and inside, barely visible, a verse he couldn’t quite make out. Followed by the same initials—V.E.

A bouquet in a corridor, gifted, delivered by someone blushing and laughing behind gloved hands. Peonies, roses, lilacs. He’d assumed they were meant for someone else. And yet—he’d seen them again, wilting in a vase by her bedside the very next night. Curling at the edges. He hadn’t thought twice. Or perhaps he had refused to.

His throat was dry when he finally spoke. “Who is V.E.?”

Her hand stilled on his cock. There was a flicker of surprise in her eyes. Brief. Swift. Then gone. In its place, a calm so practiced it chilled him. “Do you truly wish to speak of another man,” she said, lips brushing the words like silk, “when I’m about to ride you?”

The ease of it, the casual cruelty—he would’ve preferred a lie.

His gaze drifted past her, to where their horses grazed in the distance. The air hung thick with the scent of late summer blooms. And still, he couldn’t quite breathe. So little of her belonged to him. These moments—brief, burning—had felt like something, but maybe they had only ever been this. A small snippet of her he was allowed to have, nothing more.

Her hand came to rest against his face. Soft. Familiar. Commanding. “Thallan,” she whispered, and her voice was quiet, but it rooted him all the same. “Look at me.”

And he did. Of course he did.

“I thought you knew what this was.”

He couldn’t answer. There was something in his throat—grief, maybe, or shame. A thick, pulsing silence.

He forced out only two words. “How long?”

“Six sennights.”

Six.

They had lain together through a season. And half that time, she’d already belonged to another. No—not belonged, because she never had. Not to him. But he… he had belonged to her. Fully. Foolishly. And so when her next words came, they didn’t wound. They killed.

“What did you think would come from this?” she asked, not cruelly, but plainly. “You were made to serve. To please. Not to be mine.”

Maybe it was meant to set him free. To make it easier. To help him unmoor himself from her the way she already had from him. But it was cruel. Because if he wasn’t made for her, then what was he made for?

And deep within him, his magic stirred—slow and rising like smoke under water. It wasn’t rage. Not quite. It was older than that. Lonelier.

It was the echo of something breaking.

His hands found her waist, steady but firm, and he lifted her off him, setting her aside with more care than he felt. As he knelt to refasten his trousers, she reached for him—fingers brushing his arm, his shoulder.

He caught her wrist before she could make contact. “Do not touch me.” His voice didn’t waver.

She blinked at him, startled but not remorseful. Her eyes held no guilt, no panic. Only the quiet detachment of someone already elsewhere. It was like staring into the face of a stranger wearing someone else’s skin.

The Katerina he had loved—had worshipped, really—who was she? What pieces of her had been real? Was it just the laughter, the looks, the longing carefully curated for the illusion she offered him?

He realized then: he had only ever known the woman who visited him in stolen moments.

Heat stirred at the base of his spine. His magic surged—simmering under his skin, crawling up his arms. The air thickened, hot and heavy with it, even as he fought to hold it back.

He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t look at her.

And then, all at once, it was gone.

His breath caught in his throat. The magic vanished from him like water down a drain.

“Never use your affinity on me.” Her voice cut through the silence like a blade—sharp, imperious. Not frightened. Commanding and cold. 

It hit him then—she had siphoned it.

“Do you understand?” she asked, and there was steel beneath her voice now.

He released her wrist. A red imprint bloomed against her skin where his fingers had held too tightly, where his fire had kissed her flesh. Shame knotted in his throat.

He stood and turned away from her. He could not bear to look. Not at her. Not at what his touch had done. Not at what this made him. A fool. A tool. A boy who mistook longing for love and obedience for devotion. And worst of all—he had almost let the fire take her.

He stepped away from her, his boots brushing through the tall grass as he made for the horses.

“Where are you going?” she called, her voice clipped with something unreadable.

He didn’t turn. “I’m leaving,” he said simply, reaching for the reins where his horse was tethered beneath the tree’s shade.

Before he could react her hands pressed to his chest, forcing him back until the bark of the oak met his spine. “But we didn’t finish,” she murmured, her voice dipping into that velvet softness she wore like perfume—always when she wanted something.

***Content Warning: non-descriptive sexual assault will occur in the following paragraphs, feel free to skip to the next chapter.***

Her lips found his. One hand tangled behind his neck. The other slid lower—trailing over his stomach, slipping past the fabric of his trousers.

He didn’t stop her. Didn’t push her away. He couldn’t. “Kat…” His throat was dry. 

If anyone had asked—if anyone had seen what passed beneath the branches of that tree—he would say he didn’t remember. 

And that wouldn’t be a lie.

His mind had drifted, floating somewhere beyond his body. He stared past her shoulder, past the sway of trees, to nothing at all. But he remembered the texture of bark digging into his back, then the way the grass pricked at him as he was directed to lay. Her breath and body against his skin. The strange, distant coldness that bloomed in his chest while she moved.

Her touch used to ignite him. Now it left him hollow.

Thallan left that field sometime after. He couldn’t say how long. Only that he didn’t speak a word. Didn’t look back.

All he knew was this: something in him had broken. He had left behind the last remnants of the person he used to be, and the illusion of what he thought they were under that tree.