NATHAN’S POV
Something was wrong, I felt it long before I understood it. Long before I allowed myself to admit it.
The problem with spending enough time loving someone was that eventually they existed inside you in ways that no longer made sense. You learned their silence. Learned the weight of their absence. Learned when something shifted, even when logic said it should not.
Elodie had been sitting wrong inside my chest for three days, three days. Three days of strategy meetings. Three days of battle preparation. Three days of pretending my mind belonged where my body was.
It didn’t.
“You are doing it again.”
I looked up sharply.
Lucien stood across the strategy table watching me.
“Doing what?”
“Thinking about her.”
“I am not.”
“You are.”
“No.”
“You moved that same piece four
