Love was a fickle thing.
Cecilia knew this in her marrow, that falling in love was the most terrifying leap a soul could make.
After everything.
She fell in love once. But that love was manufactured. It began with an attack staged for her political 'yes'. Still, she had forgiven Arzhen for that, for a time. She thought they were mutual victims, two pawns pushed together by colder hands. His distance, his coldness, she had mistaken for a silent protest.
Until everything crashed down all at once.
But now…
Now, there were two men clearly in desperate need of her.
Love was a fickle thing.
But perhaps it was also simpler than the poets and the tragedians claimed. It wasn't about deserving, or worth, or grand, sweeping gestures. It was an equation of presence.
She wasn't much. A heartless woman with a borrowed title and a bag of strange tricks. But she was enough. Enough for a Dragon Lord to bind his eternity to. Enough for a Wolf King to reshape his honor for.
