The grand doors closed behind them with a low thoom, final as a judge's decree.
Caelthorn Thion didn't move for a long while. He stood stiff by the tall, arched window, watching the retreating forms of the young man and the girls trailing behind him.
Virellen walked at their side, animatedly chatting with the smallest of the three. But Caelthorn's eyes weren't on his daughter.
They were on him. The one they called Enric.
He looked... impossible.
Tall, but not just in height—his presence bent the space around him. The way people stood straighter when he walked past, even without looking.
The way even his silences seemed to cast shadows. And those three girls—slave seals gleaming against their skin like branded devotion—they adored him.
Not with fear, not with obligation. With the kind of fierce, boundless loyalty men only gained after saving lives or souls.
The kind of loyalty one couldn't buy.
