TRISTAN'S QUARTERS
Lucian's footsteps paused outside their door, briefing scroll in hand. Wolf hearing didn't ask permission. He heard enough. He left before he heard more.
The briefing could wait. The words behind that door could not, and they weren't his to hear, and hearing them anyway was a punishment his loyalty had earned and his heart hadn't.
"You can't keep doing this, Tristan."
River was sitting on a chair by the fire.
"Doing what?"
"Pulling things from her. The public corrections. Every time you take something from Vesper, every time you fight the fated tie, I feel it."
He turned. "Feel what?"
"Darkness." She said it quietly. The way she said things that scared her. "Inside you. Growing. Every time you reject her, every time you force the bond backward, something in you gets darker. I can sense it, Tristan. It's cold. It wasn't there before."
His jaw tightened. "She disrespected you in front of the entire court."
