Dinner is mercifully short.

The sea wind forces them indoors after the first course, and the manor’s great hall is smaller than the palace’s—more crowded, less room for pomp. This suits Elian fine.

But afterward, when guests disperse into smaller rooms for wine and conversation, he feels the walls close in again.

He slips outside.

The night is cool. The moon casts a pale shimmer across the water. The sound of distant laughter and clinking glasses drifts faintly through open windows.

He walks down a slope toward the rocky shoreline.

A minute later, he hears quiet footsteps behind him.

“You shouldn’t walk alone at night,” Rowan says.

Elian doesn’t turn. “You followed me.”

“Of course I did.”

Elian steps onto the rocks, the surf just close enough that spray touches his boots. “Are you going to drag me back inside?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because you needed air,” Rowan says simply.

Elian closes his eyes for a moment. The wind pushes his hair back. The salt stings pleasantly on his skin.

He hears Rowan approach carefully, boots scraping stone.

“You’re quiet tonight,” Rowan says.

“So are you,” Elian replies.

Rowan pauses beside him. “You look… different.”

Elian huffs a laugh. “Define different.”

“Less guarded,” Rowan says. “More lost.”

Elian’s shoulders tighten. “I’m not lost.”

“You are,” Rowan says. “Just not in a way you know how to admit.”

Elian turns toward him. The moonlight paints Rowan in silver—his hair, the line of his jaw, the faint scar near his temple.

“Do you always do this?” Elian asks.

“Do what?”

“Look at me like you’re trying to memorize me.”

Rowan’s throat works. He looks away.

“Elian,” he murmurs. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

Rowan doesn’t answer.

A wave crashes below. Water sprays up, brushing their legs.

Elian exhales. “You said you would take me away from all this, if I asked.”

Rowan closes his eyes. “Yes.”

“Do you regret saying it?”

“No.”

Elian’s breath catches. “Then why won’t you look at me?”

Rowan opens his eyes—and the look there is too much. Too honest. Too raw.

“Elian,” he says softly, “I don’t know how to want something I can’t have without hurting you.”

Elian feels the world narrow.

He steps closer, not touching, but near enough that he can feel Rowan’s body heat against the night chill.

“You wouldn’t hurt me,” Elian whispers.

“I already am,” Rowan says. “Just by being here.”

Elian swallows. “Then don’t stand so far away.”

Rowan freezes.

His hand twitches—as if he almost reaches for Elian, as if muscle memory and desire war in him—but he doesn’t close the gap.

“Elian,” he says again, voice strained. “Please don’t ask me to cross a line you can’t afford for me to cross.”

Elian’s chest aches. “Why is it my responsibility to afford anything? Why can’t I want something without calculating the cost?”

“You can,” Rowan says. “But I can’t let you.”

Wind whips around them. Salt sprays against their coats. The world feels suspended.

Elian whispers, “Rowan… tell me the truth.”

Rowan’s jaw clenches. “I have been.”

“Not all of it.”

Rowan looks him full-on then, expression stripped bare.

“Elian,” he says quietly, “you are asking for something I have no right to give.”

It’s not a denial.

It’s a confession wrapped in restraint.

Elian feels the ground shift beneath him—not physically, but in the shape of his understanding.

Something bright and frightening and inevitable sparks in his chest.

A wave hits the rocks louder this time, shaking spray over their boots.

Elian steps back.

Not far. Just enough to breathe.

Rowan’s shoulders loosen minutely—as if he hadn’t realized they were tense.

“We should go,” Rowan says, voice gentle.

“Yes,” Elian whispers.

But neither moves.

***

They walk back slowly, the quiet between them charged but fragile.

When they reach the terrace stair, Rowan hesitates.

“Elian,” he says softly. “Tonight was…”

Elian waits.

Rowan shakes his head. “Be careful.”

“With what?” Elian asks.

“With wanting,” Rowan says.

Elian nods once. “You too.”

Rowan’s breath catches—but only briefly.

He bows slightly and steps back. “Goodnight.”

Elian watches him go, feeling something in him tremble like a taut string.

He doesn’t sleep for a long time.

He sits by the window, watching the moon drag silver across the water, and thinks of Rowan’s voice, Rowan’s hands hovering but never touching, Rowan’s words echoing like a warning and a promise:

I don’t know how to want something I can’t have without hurting you.

Elian presses a hand to his chest.

He knows—now, unmistakably—that he is already in too deep.

He also knows that the line Rowan won’t cross is the very one Elian wants to drag into the light.

Outside, the waves continue their relentless rhythm.

Inside, Elian feels the ache of wanting something so close, so wrong, so impossible—and so entirely his.

He finally lies down near dawn, exhaustion pulling him under.

But even as sleep takes him, he feels the phantom heat of Rowan’s presence beside him on the rocks, the echo of almost.

Almost something.

Almost enough.

Almost everything he cannot have.