"You are married now, Alaric," Elara said, folding her hands gently before her. "It is proper you share a room."
Alaric's jaw twitched.
Elara, as always, spoke with grace. Her soft voice wrapped around her words like silk, but the weight behind them was iron. She didn't raise her voice—she never had to. People simply obeyed her, even him.
"You expect me to sleep beside a stranger," Alaric said coldly, narrowing his eyes.
"She is no stranger. She is your wife," Elara replied calmly. "Or have you already forgotten that parchment you brought me in fury this afternoon?"
Alaric looked away.
"Alaric." Her voice softened. "I know this is not what you wanted. But she is alone in a foreign land. She has no one."
"That's not my fault," he snapped.
"No," Elara agreed. "But her safety is now your responsibility."
And with that, she turned and left him standing alone outside the door.
....
He opened the door quietly.
Inside, the fire had been dimmed, casting long shadows along the walls of the bedchamber. The flickering glow illuminated the pale blue canopy above the bed, casting a soft hue over the sheets.
Lan was already asleep.
She had curled herself near the edge of the bed, still in her hanfu, arms tucked beneath her cheek like a child. Her breathing was slow and even. Her long black hair spilled like silk across the pillow, and her lips were parted slightly, almost in a sigh.
Alaric stood motionless by the door for a long moment.
He had expected her to be frightened. Or watching him with wide, uncertain eyes. But this… this strange comfort in his presence unsettled him more than fear ever could.
He crossed the room slowly, pulling off his coat with a sharp movement and tossing it across the armchair. He sat on the far side of the bed, not bothering to undress. He didn't plan to sleep. Not really.
Yet minutes passed.
Then an hour.
And as the fire sank lower, his eyes remained open—watching the ceiling. The silence was maddening. The same silence he had known on the battlefield after the last scream had died. The kind that left your ears ringing.
Then something shifted.
He turned his head slightly.
Lan had moved in her sleep—her head now tilted back, her collar loosened in her restlessness. The delicate silk of her hanfu had slipped, revealing the slope of her collarbone and the curve of her shoulder. Her skin was moon-pale, untouched by sun or war. Her face, still childish, looked even smaller in sleep.
So fragile. So unaware.
His jaw clenched.
He should have hated her.
He had once.
He remembered it clearly—the firelit battlefield outside the shattered eastern gate of Qinglong. Her father's banners had fallen. Her mother's cries had echoed across the stone courtyard. Lan had been dragged from the palace, too stunned to scream, her small hands reaching out to the dead who would never rise again.
She had looked up at him.
Terrified.
He had raised his blade.
And then someone—he couldn't remember who now—had grabbed his wrist.
"She's the last one," the man had said. "Don't waste her. She's sellable."
The words had made bile rise in Alaric's throat. He had sheathed his sword and turned away.
That same girl, who once trembled beneath his shadow, now lay inches from him. Breathing. Sleeping.
He stared at her for a long time.
Lan shifted again, her brows twitching slightly as if chasing a dream. Her lips moved—soft, inaudible words whispered in her native tongue.
Alaric turned away.
He leaned back onto the cold sheets, folding his arms behind his head.
He would not sleep tonight.
And he certainly would not reach out to touch her.
Even if a strange part of him wanted to understand why looking at her stirred a part of him he'd long thought dead.