Alderon's POV
Evening draped the palace in gold—the kind of soft, dying light that made everything look calmer than it truly was.
I stood on the balcony overlooking the courtyard, hands braced on the railing, trying—failing—to steady my thoughts.
Maria.
Everything about her today had been… wrong.
Her eyes wouldn't meet mine. Her voice trembled. Her scent—normally warm, quiet, steady—was sharp with fear.
Fear she tried to hide from everyone.
But not from me.
And that—gods help me—unsettled me more than anything else.
She's hiding something.
I exhaled slowly, watching the sun bleed into the horizon.
First, my mother recognized her—or thought she did. Then that prince from the West, Ronan Lupus, had looked at her like he was staring into the past. Like she belonged to him. Like he had found something he had been hunting.
What are you hiding, Maria?
And why does the thought of losing what we have—whatever this is—cut deeper than it should?
My jaw clenched.
