DARIAN

The scent of parchment and burnt cedar fills my study. It’s quiet, finally. The kind of silence that settles over everything like a thick fog. I welcome it. It gives me room to breathe, to think. Or at least pretend I’m thinking about matters that matter.

I stare at the map sprawled across my desk, lines and territories blurring together, none of it holding my attention. Not when something else, someone else, has been pressing at the edges of my mind since that night.

I feel Adrian long before the door opens. His presence is loud, cocky, unfiltered, even when he’s not saying a word.

I sigh, pinching the...