Rocher hadn't moved in hours.

  I sat beside him on the oversized bed, a basin of cool water banced on my knees, dabbing the sweat from his brow with a soft linen cloth. The Crown Prince's guest suite was warm, bright, absurdly comfortable. Velvet curtains. Cushions. A private hearth crackling with gentle fire.

  If I didn't know better, it would have seemed perfectly domestic.

  The iron shackles that csped around my ankle, bolted to the bedpost, reminded me it was anything but.

  Rocher didn't wake.

  He y half-curled, breath shallow, face tight with pain even in unconsciousness. His mana flickered through his body like a frayed wire sparking in the dark. Every few minutes the coil of blue light around his ribs stuttered and dimmed, and my heart stuttered with it.

  I pressed the cloth to his cheek again, smoothing back a strand of hair that had fallen over his closed eyes.

  No healer could help him. Not priests. Not medics. Not even the Tower's specialists. Mana Recoil was a self-inflicted injury in the purest sense: the body colpsing under its own power.

  I looked down at my hands, still faintly glowing from Healing Touch. It did nothing. The recoil damage was anchored too deep, too close to his core. Only time could fix that.

  I should have seen it coming.

  The orb weapon the Crown Prince detonated in the Forest did not discriminate. It didn't explode outward like fire or ice. It didn't strike one target.

  It ignited mana.

  Any mana.

  Whatever was present in a living creature's body, the orb turned that into fuel. It multiplied it. Set it abze from the inside. The more mana a person had, the worse the internal burn.

  When the orb detonated near Rocher, all that power he carried as the Hero—every thread of magic Ferric had tried to teach him to use—caught fire.

  Rocher's power had nearly killed him.

  And I was the one who pushed him so hard to learn it.

  I bowed my head, letting my forehead rest lightly against the back of his hand.

  Where did it all go wrong?

  How had the story slipped away from me again?

  Some things were the same.

  Seraphine had come by earlier, still pale from her ordeal in the Forest. She had given her report in clipped, tidy sentences that couldn't hide the truth beneath them.

  The cost was unimaginable.

  Velka the Forest Guardian had died in her arms. Ysel followed soon after. The Great Tree was barely hanging by a thread. Half the Forest turned to ash by the orb's mana ignition. The other half suffocated by demonic miasma.

  It was no longer habitable, much less a haven for witches. Nyxara and Ferric had scattered to the four winds, nowhere to be seen.

  The official story went that we'd succumbed to mind control. Since the three of us had coincidentally visited the Forest's edge several months ago, they reasoned that the seed was pnted then—the magic incubating in our heads until we fell, one by one.

  His Highness was commended for his swift and decisive intervention. Another page added to his legend.

  For her heroism in sying two witches and containing the outbreak of demonic corruption, Seraphine was appointed Sage—a title no one had held for a thousand years. By the joint recommendation of the Crown Prince and White Warden, she was granted emergency power over the Tower, plying its resources as she saw fit in order to research solutions for the Demon Lord. The overwhelming success of the orb squashed all dissent.

  The end of her css advancement quest. I smiled bitterly.

  At least something was going right.

  So many things were different. So many things were wrong.

  Yes, I had known that the Hero's advancement quest hung over the others, like a sword waiting to fall. For reasons veteran pyers never really understood, the Crown Prince could become paranoid enough to interfere in other advancement quests.

  Seraphine's advancement quest was no exception.

  But this? This devastation never happened in the game.

  Ysel never died. Velka never died. The witches never disbanded. They were all meant to be capturable side targets. Allies you could call upon for the final fight.

  There was no Mana Recoil bomb obliterating half the Forest, no burst of demonic corruption poisoning the other.

  I tried to reason through the threads, the divergences I knew.

  The first was Evelyn. Her dual Guildmaster role.

  In the game, she had only ever led one Guild: either the Thieves or the Mercenaries, depending on the choices the pyer took. She'd never handed the Crown Prince so much power at once—an army he could move without oversight.

  That alone made him more dangerous. More bold.

  But even so... in the game, he'd never dealt with the Forest personally. Never ordered the orb deployed this way. Never put Rocher in the line of fire.

  So why now?

  I looked at the shackles around my ankle.

  And slowly, painfully, the answer began to form.

  It was Rocher—setting off without his permission.

  It was half the Hero's party—his assets, his leverage—going missing without report.

  It was me.

  In the game, they'd worked hand-in-hand to rescue Seraphine. Rocher had every reason to involve the Crown Prince, and the Crown Prince had every reason to get involved. Seraphine was a valuable asset to recover, after all.

  But here, Rocher had no evidence that Seraphine could be saved. He wasn't the one who'd heard her psychic cries for help.

  He only knew he would find me at the end of it. And that I wasn't important enough to bargain for the Crown Prince's support.

  So Rocher—my Rocher—set off in secrecy.

  Fearing the sudden loss of his brother, the Crown Prince took matters into his own hands. Invoked his full authority. Every resource. Every contingency.

  No half-measures.

  Evelyn had tried to contain them. I had tried as well.

  But love had made us fear, and fear stripped us of reason. Of restraint.

  And the Forest paid the price.

  I brushed my fingertips along Rocher's knuckles, whispering under my breath.

  "I'm sorry."

  For everything I failed to see.For everything I should have stopped.For everything I couldn't hold together.

  The story wasn't following its old course anymore.

  And the Crown Prince was already walking down the hall, coming for the answers he believed he was owed.

  Coming for me.

  The door opened with a soft click.

  The two guards straightened instantly, saluting. I tensed.

  Prince Corveaux stepped inside.

  He'd removed his traveling cloak and obsidian lenses, leaving only the tailored dark coat and the faintest scent of frost and cedar. Without armor or entourage, he almost looked like he belonged in a sitting room, not a battlefield.

  His eyes went to Rocher first.

  His expression—just for a heartbeat—cooled into something unmistakably human.

  Concern. Genuine concern.

  He crossed the room in three long strides and crouched beside the bed, gloved hand hovering above Rocher's forearm but not touching.

  "Is he stable?" he asked quietly.

  The softness in his voice caught me off guard. It sounded nothing like the man who'd burned half the Forest down.

  "...He's alive," I managed.

  Corveaux exhaled, slow, as if he'd been holding that breath since the clearing.

  "Good. That's good."

  He stood again, smoothing his coat with a composed gesture before finally turning to me.

  His gaze flicked briefly to the shackle on my ankle.

  "These restraints were not my first choice," he said. "But until I can be certain of your safety—of Rocher's safety—you must understand why precautions were necessary."

  Precautions.

  As if this were a minor inconvenience.

  As if the Forest hadn't cracked under his command.

  I kept my expression neutral. Barely.

  He stepped closer, stopping at a polite distance, though the air between us tightened.

  "You've had a difficult few days," he said gently. "You were caught in the middle of a matter that should have been handled... more prudently."

  I held my breath. "Seraphine came by to update me on everything," I said.

  "Good," he murmured. "She's recovering admirably, given what she's endured. Her Holiness has been assisting her."

  My pulse hitched. "Lumiere? She's here?"

  "She arrived with Duke Aurelio yesterday evening," Corveaux said, voice softening as if delivering reassuring news. "I spoke with them at length, negotiating the terms of your probationary release."

  He watched me as he spoke, studying every flicker of reaction like a jeweler examining a gem.

  Then he smiled.

  "Which brings me to you."

  My stomach tightened.

  "I'd rather not be forced to involve the Tower again," he said lightly. "I imagine neither of us is eager to repeat that experience."

  His courtesy was suffocating.

  "So," he continued, csping his hands behind his back, "I'm prepared to offer you more favorable terms."

  I waited.

  He let the silence stretch just long enough to make it feel like I was the one being impatient.

  "You will attend one public event," he said. "A celebratory ball in honor of Seraphine's new appointment. A symbolic gesture, nothing more."

  My throat went tight. "And after that?"

  "You will provide me with weekly reports on Rocher," he said. "His health, his magic, his progress."

  The wording was warm. The implication was ice.

  Reports. Monitoring. Updates on the Hero—through me.

  "And," he added lightly, "you will be staying in my pace. Under my protection. A... more generous house arrest, if you prefer that term."

  He delivered the sentence like he was offering a room upgrade in an inn.

  My fingers curled against the bedsheets. "You want me to live here?"

  "Only for a time," he said. "Until things settle."

  Corveaux stepped closer—not invading, just near enough that I could feel the deliberate gentleness radiating off him.

  "Cire de Lune," he said quietly, "I am offering you safety. Comfort. Stability. The alternatives avaible to me are... considerably less pleasant."

  His gaze lowered to the shackle.

  "Let me remove the need for that."

  It wasn't safety.

  He was offering a cage with softer walls.

  I swallowed. "And if I decline?"

  Corveaux's smile didn't move—but something behind his eyes did.

  "Why," he said softly, "would you do something so unwise?"

  The fire popped in the hearth behind him.

  Rocher stirred faintly on the bed.

  And Corveaux's voice dipped to something quiet. Something final.

  "This arrangement protects everyone you care about. Including him." He nodded toward Rocher. "So yes. You will move into the pace. You will accompany me to the ball. You will provide me with reports. And you will not leave before agreeing to those terms."

  He paused, studying me for even the smallest sign of rebellion.

  "Do we understand one another?"

  I felt the weight of the entire kingdom pressing against my ribs.

  A single, stupid heartbeat of rebellion fred in my chest—and extinguished instantly when Rocher exhaled in pain beside me.

  I swallowed the word no before it could betray us both.

  "...I understand," I whispered.

  Corveaux smiled, satisfied.

  "Good," he said softly. "Then let us begin once more on better footing."

  He reached for my shackle key.

  And the chain fell away with a soft metallic click.

  Corveaux slipped the door shut behind him, and for a moment he simply stood there, savoring the quiet.

  The hum beneath his skin was pleasant. Familiar.

  Truth be told, he preferred the party how it used to be. Fractured. Polite. Professional.

  People were so easy to manage when they kept one another at arm's length.

  But then one little nun wandered in from nowhere, soft-voiced and bright-eyed, and all of a sudden his carefully measured pieces began skittering across the board.

  He dragged a hand across his face, suppressing a ugh. He'd already decided.

  She would be his next project.

  The wedges were already there, tucked neatly between the cracks. All he had to do was push.