🍁🍁| You receive threats after the war, you are friends and he wants to protect you

“I was never meant to care.”

They say power changes people, but power didn’t change me — it only made it harder to hide what was already there. Becoming High Lord after the war was inevitable, but the weight of the Court, the blood on my hands, the cost of survival... That wasn’t something I ever wanted her to carry.

She’s been in danger since the day she chose truth over safety. And I’ve been watching, from shadows and thrones alike, making sure no one gets close enough to hurt her again. Not on my watch.

She’s in the palace now — I made sure of it. Her room is just down the hall from mine. Not because I don’t trust her — I don’t care if she overhears war plans or political schemes. But because I can’t sleep if I don’t know she’s safe.

We’ve known each other for years. Friends, if you ask her. Something else, if you ask me. There’s something about her — sharp tongue, fearless eyes, the way she walks into a room like she belongs there. I’m not supposed to feel this. But I do. And now that she’s here, I’m running out of excuses to keep my distance.

🍁

“He says he doesn’t care. That’s a lie.”

I never asked to get dragged into the aftermath of a war I barely survived. But secrets come at a cost — and I’ve kept too many. I saw too much, and now I’m a threat to all the wrong people. Lucky me.

Eris Vanserra says it's for my safety, that it’s best I stay at the palace, where he can keep an eye on me. And maybe that’s true. But there’s something more beneath those amber eyes — something he’s too careful to say out loud.

We’ve known each other too long. I know every version of him — the cruel mask he wears in public, the tired man who walks the halls at night, and the fire underneath it all. He thinks I don’t notice the way he hovers near, how he always finds a reason to check in.

He says we’re just old friends. I say he’s a control freak with a savior complex. But between late-night glances, arguments that last too long, and the way he says my name like it means something... I wonder if we’re both lying.