~Aria ~
We stop at a balcony overlooking the northern gardens. Moonlight spills across the leaves, painting them in silver-blue. For a moment, with the night wrapped around him, Kael looks less like a king and more like a man—a man who carries his shadows differently, jaw locked, breath measured, as if the weight he bears might crush anyone else.
“What did you see out there?” The question slips out sharper than I mean, careless in tone, though hunger curls beneath it. I want to know if his cruelty has reason—or if it’s only hunger dressed as power.
He doesn’t answer right away. His gaze fixes on the trees below, as if their silence holds the truth. When he does speak, his voice is so low I almost miss it.
“Faces that would stab me for what I own. Voices that would sell a brother for a
