The light hurt.

  Not the bandaged eye, though that ached with its own particular misery. The other one. The good one. Even through closed lids, the winter sun slanting through the narrow window felt like needles pressed against his skull.

  Gale kept his eyes shut and tried to remember where he was.

  The West Tower. The only place in the palace that still felt like his. He’d stopped sleeping in her bed after the first week, when the nightmares had grown too frequent and his presence had started to feel like an intrusion.

  The bed beneath him now was his own, though he couldn’t recall climbing into it. The blankets smelled of wine and old sweat. His mouth tasted like something had died in it.

  How long had he been asleep? Hours? A day? The quality of light suggested afternoon, but that meant nothing. He’d lost track of time when nights and days had started bleeding together into an endless gray sameness punctuated only by the mark’s cold burn.

  A knock at the door.

  “Master Dekarios?” Jory’s voice, cautious. The stableboy had appointed himself as Gale’s unofficial keeper these days, after finding him passed out in an empty stall a week ago—the only servant who hadn’t yet learned to treat him like glass or a ghost.

  “You can come in.” His voice came out rough, unused. When had he last spoken?

  The door opened. Jory entered with a tray—bread, cheese, cold meat, something in a cup that steamed faintly. The boy was perhaps sixteen, gangly in that way young men were before they finished growing into their frames. He set the tray on the desk without comment, though his nose wrinkled slightly.

  The room probably smelled as bad as Gale did.

  “The steward asked me to remind you. About tonight,” Jory said.

  Gale’s eye drifted to the window. “Tonight.”

  “The Winterfire celebration, sir. Her Grace expects the household to attend.”

  Winterfire.

  The word hit him in the ribs, disturbing things he’d pushed carefully away.

  I hate winter, he’d told her once. Early autumn, the first chill creeping through the library windows. Books spread between them, research for something he couldn’t remember now. He’d been complaining about the cold with theatrical misery, playing up his suffering because it made her smile. Despise it. Loathe it with every fiber of my frost-bitten being.

  She’d laughed at him. That particular laugh she saved for his dramatics—fond and exasperated in equal measure.

  But celebrations... He’d softened then, letting the performance fall away. Our first Winterfire together will be memorable, Dove. I promise you that.

  She’d smiled, warm and secret, and said again she wanted a winter ceremony. He’d objected, of course. Winter meant frozen guests, wilted flowers, roads too icy for travel. She’d been stubborn about it, the way she was stubborn about everything, and he’d loved her for it even as he argued.

  They’d kept bickering over dinner. Logistics, guest lists, whether anyone would actually brave the cold to watch them marry. The argument had followed them back to the tower afterward, voices rising and falling in the familiar rhythm of two people who enjoyed disagreeing with each other.

  Then she’d ended it. Reached up, grabbed his lapel, and pulled him down to her like she’d always had the right. The kiss was fierce, then suddenly sweet—pure Fran, in the way she could be both without ever noticing. The argument about winter flowers had died somewhere between her fingers in his hair and his hands at her waist.

  After that, the night had blurred into warmth and promises and the absolute certainty that he would marry this woman in a blizzard if she asked him to, frozen toes and all.

  “Master Dekarios?”

  Gale blinked. Jory was still there, watching him with poorly concealed concern.

  “Thank you, Jory.” Gale managed. His voice sounded distant, mechanical. “Winterfire. I’ll be there.”

  The boy nodded and retreated, closing the door softly behind him.

  Gale remained in bed, staring at the ceiling beams until the light shifted enough that he could no longer pretend he hadn’t understood the summons.

  When he forced himself upright, the room tilted. He waited for it to settle, breathing through the nausea, and reached for the water pitcher. He drank until the worst of the headache dulled to a manageable throb.

  He caught his reflection in the mirror by the washbasin: hollow-eyed, unshaven, the bandage giving him the look of something half-dead. The mark at his wrist pulsed cold beneath the bandage and the sleeve he kept pulled down to hide it.

  He turned away and began the tedious process of making himself presentable.

  The coat was the worst of it. Dark wool, silver buttons, the kind of formal elegance he usually complained about but that Fran liked to see him wear. His right hand—the burned one, still healing beneath its wrappings—couldn’t manage the buttons. The fingers wouldn’t close properly, wouldn’t grip, wouldn’t do anything but ache and tremble when he tried to force them.

  He fumbled with the third button for what felt like an eternity. Finally got it through the hole with a combination of his left hand and sheer, frustrated persistence. Moved to the fourth. Failed. Tried again.

  By the time he finished, his forehead was damp with sweat and his hand throbbed viciously. He looked in the mirror again—coat buttoned, hair combed back, every inch the court mage—and felt nothing but exhaustion.

  One more performance. One more evening of smiling and nodding and pretending to be someone worth knowing.

  He could do this. He’d done it before. Would keep doing it until... until what? Until she stopped looking at him with that desperate hope he didn’t deserve? Until the mark at his wrist finally consumed whatever was left of him?

  Until you tell her the truth.

  He pushed the thought down with all the others.

  On his way out, he paused at the small table where he kept his wine. Two bottles remained from the case he’d had brought up last week. He pulled the cork from one, poured a generous measure into the goblet by his bedside, and drank it in three long swallows.

  Warmth spread through his chest. The edges of everything softened slightly.

  Better.

  He set the empty goblet down, straightened his coat like armor, and went to keep a promise he no longer deserved to make.

  The stairwell was cold enough to sting his teeth.

  Music rose as he descended—strings and laughter, muffled at first, then louder with every turn. The scent of evergreen thickened in the lower corridors, sweet and resinous, fighting a losing battle against smoke and spilled wine.

  By the time he reached the great doors, his smile was already in place.

  The Great Hall blazed with light. Silver lanterns, evergreen garlands, crystal chandeliers multiplying candleflame until the whole room seemed to burn. The tables had been arranged along the walls to create space for dancing, and servants moved through the crowd with trays of winter delicacies—roasted nuts, honeyed pears, tiny pastries that probably tasted of spice.

  Gale took it all in with the distant assessment of someone watching a play. Beautiful. Traditional. Exactly what a Winterfire celebration should be.

  He made his way to the wine table like a man who knew his only chance of surviving the evening. The servant there—Lucas, if he remembered right—poured without being asked. The wine was good—better than what he’d been drinking in the tower, certainly. Gale took a long sip and let the familiar warmth settle into his bones.

  A year ago, Fran had stood in this same hall and spoken his name for the first time. Gale Dekarios of Waterdeep. He had accepted her invitation, feeling the teeth, the dare in it. He’d come to Vartis intrigued and amused. He hadn’t known what he was walking into. Hadn’t known that the exhausted woman with the sharp eyes would become the center of everything, the axis around which his entire world would turn.

  Now look at him. Hiding by the wine table like a coward, dreading the moment she’d—

  She entered.

  The world narrowed to a single point, and Gale forgot how to breathe.

  The dress was deep blue silk, almost the exact shade of her engagement ring. The bodice was embroidered with silver thread that caught the candlelight, fitted close enough to show she wasn’t wearing her usual practical layers beneath. Her hair was pinned up, exposing the line of her neck. No cane. No visible concession to the injuries she was still recovering from.

  When she moved, the crowd parted for her the way crowds always did, nobles stepping aside with murmured greetings and calculating glances.

  She looked radiant. Regal.

  And gods, the way that dress clung to her hips—he could barely breathe. Desire hit him like a punch to the gut, sharp and stupid.

  Then he saw the tension in her posture. The subtle favoring of her left side. She was in pain. And pretending not to be.

  The heat curdled into something bitter. He looked away and drank to drown it.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  “Master Dekarios!”

  A voice cut through the noise—some minor lord approaching with the determined stride of a man who’d been waiting for this opportunity. Grey beard, expensive doublet, the kind of self-important bearing that suggested minor nobility with major opinions.

  “Lord Ashford.” The name surfaced from somewhere. Gale arranged his face into something approaching courtesy. “A pleasure.”

  “We were beginning to wonder if you’d vanished entirely! Two months away, no word, and now—” Ashford’s gaze lingered pointedly on the bandage over Gale’s eye. “Well. Clearly something eventful occurred.”

  “Research,” Gale said. “In Kentar. The Chapters of Arcanists there have extensive libraries.”

  “Research.” Ashford’s tone suggested he didn’t believe a word of it. “How fascinating. And the injuries?”

  “An alchemical accident. Occupational hazard.”

  He could feel the man cataloguing details—the bandaged hand, the shadows under his eyes, the half-empty goblet. Storing them away for later gossip.

  “Well,” Ashford said, with the false heartiness of someone who’d gathered enough material for his dinner conversations, “we’re glad to have you back, of course. The Duchess must be relieved to have her advisor back. Particularly with the trial approaching.”

  “Indeed.” Gale agreed, and took another drink.

  Ashford moved on. Others took his place.

  Lady Margery Kilridge, who wanted to know if the rumors about dark magic in Kentar were true. Lord Daven, who congratulated him on surviving whatever had happened to his face. A merchant’s wife whose name he didn’t catch. Then someone else. And someone after that. They circled like carrion birds, drawn by curiosity about his absence, his injuries, his relationship with the Duchess.

  Every conversation felt like a performance, every smile a lie, every word ash in his mouth.

  Through it all, he watched her.

  Fran moved through the crowd with the practiced grace of someone who’d learned to perform under pressure. Smiling at the right moments. Deflecting questions with elegant non-answers. Never quite showing how much each step cost her.

  He should go to her. Stand beside her. Be what she needed him to be.

  He poured another drink instead.

  “Master Dekarios.”

  This voice was sharper, more insistent. He turned to find a woman in her middle years, dressed in the deep violet of a family he should probably recognize. Her expression suggested someone building up to a complaint.

  “Countess Richham.” Another name surfacing from his mental archives. Her son was at Candlekeep. Third year, if he remembered correctly. Mediocre talent, excellent pedigree. “How is young Hemon finding his studies?”

  “That,” she said, “is precisely what I wished to discuss with you.”

  Gale suppressed a sigh. “Oh?”

  “This new headmaster—Avis Pristan, right?—she’s implementing some rather... questionable changes.”

  “Master Pristan was my deputy for two years. She’s exceptionally qualified.”

  “If you say so.” The Countess’s tone made this sound like an accusation. “But she’s teaching wordless incantations to second-years. Second-years, Dekarios. It’s dangerous. Reckless. Children who can barely manage a proper flame spell, and she wants them abandoning the formulas entirely! She doesn’t even consider their safety, or our traditions!”

  The professional part of Gale’s mind—the part that had once run the Academy, that had taught and researched and cared about magical education—stirred from its long hibernation.

  “Traditions can be changed, Countess,” his voice came out sharper than intended. “Especially when the rest of the learned world has been laughing at our backs for at least three decades.”

  The Countess’s eyes widened. “I beg your pardon?”

  “The Chapters in Kentar, the Circles in Vernador, the Order in Solmarin— all of them train students to minimize verbal components before they’re old enough to grow a beard.” He took a sip of wine, letting the familiar rhythms of academic argument carry him. “We’re the ones still pretending syllables are a safety harness, treating our students like children reciting from Basic Spells for the Young Mage.”

  “But the risks—”

  “Are minimal compared to the pedagogical damage of forcing rote repetition on practitioners capable of far more sophisticated work.” He paused, something almost like his old self flickering behind his eyes. “I learned wordless casting at thirteen, Countess. Taught myself, because the curriculum wouldn’t address it. Master Pristan and I discussed this reform extensively during my tenure. It’s overdue by at least a decade.”

  The Countess’s face went red, then white. “I see.” Her voice was ice. “Thank you for your candor, Master Dekarios.”

  Gale watched her go and felt the spark gutter out as quickly as it had ignited. For a moment—one brief, painful moment—he’d felt like himself. Like someone with opinions and expertise and the authority to express them.

  Then he remembered what he was now and turned back to the wine table, where Lucas promptly refilled his goblet.

  And then she was there.

  He hadn’t seen her approach, but suddenly Fran was standing beside him, close enough that he could smell her perfume over the wine and evergreen. Her eyes moved over him, assessing. Worried.

  “Master Dekarios.” Her voice was light, courtly. For the audience. “I see you’ve found the wine.”

  And I see you’ve abandoned your cane to impress people who don’t deserve it.

  “Your Grace.” He inclined his head. Perfectly polite. Perfectly distant. “You look... the dress is beautiful.”

  The pause was a crime. He’d meant you. He’d said the dress.

  Her face did something complicated. Gone too quickly to name.

  She stepped closer, lowering her voice. “How are you feeling?”

  Like I’m drowning. Like I killed a boy in Kentar and I can’t tell you because the words won’t come.

  “Well enough.” He took another sip. “The wine is decent. Better than Durnhal’s, anyway.”

  “Gale—”

  “You should circulate.” He heard the words leave his mouth, pleasant and empty. “The guests will want to see you. The Iron Duchess, holding court on Winterfire. It’s the sort of thing they’ll talk about for weeks.”

  She stared at him. He could see it in her eyes—the hurt, the confusion, the desperate desire to reach him. And beneath it all, the exhaustion of a woman who’d been trying for weeks and getting nowhere.

  The mark pulsed cold at his wrist.

  “I’ll be here,” he said, already turning away. “If you need me.”

  Coward, he thought, as she nodded once and walked back into the crowd.

  He raised his goblet to his lips, watching couples moving onto the floor, silk and velvet swirling beneath the chandeliers, while the dancing began. The musicians had shifted into something older—a slow imperial piece, the kind designed for spectacle and grace.

  He knew this melody.

  Orveil. The Thareth betrothal celebration. Spring blossoms on the balcony rails and Fran in slate blue, trembling with nerves she refused to show, until she finally relaxed enough to let him guide her through the steps.

  Now the same music filled the Great Hall, and Gale felt the memory turn to ash in his mouth.

  He needed to leave. Now, before the wine wore off enough that he’d have to feel things properly. Before someone else approached with questions or concern or well-meaning conversation. Before he did something stupid like actually breaking down in the middle of a celebration.

  He set down his goblet and scanned the room. Fran had been near the dais a moment ago, speaking with Sir Rhyve— one of the few in the room who didn’t mistake stubbornness for strength. But the space where she’d stood was empty now. Perhaps her attention was required somewhere else for the moment.

  He turned away from the dance floor and slipped toward the nearest door.

  The corridor beyond was quieter. Cooler. The music still reached him, but muffled now, filtered through stone walls until it became something almost bearable. He walked without direction, guided only by a wine-fogged intention to return to the tower, until a sound stopped him.

  Quiet, barely audible over the distant music. He listened again.

  Breathing—measured, controlled. The kind that meant someone was managing pain.

  He should keep walking. Whoever it was, they’d come here for privacy. The last thing they needed was his drunken presence intruding on their moment.

  His feet carried him forward anyway.

  The alcove was set into the wall between two tapestries—a small space with a stone bench, the kind of architectural afterthought that existed in old palaces for no particular reason.

  Fran sat hunched forward, one hand pressed to her left side, her breathing shallow and controlled.

  She looked up when his footsteps stopped. Her face was pale. Drawn. The careful mask she’d worn all evening had slipped, revealing the exhaustion beneath.

  “Gale.” Not a greeting. Just recognition.

  He should keep walking. She needed rest, not his presence. He was drunk and hollow and had nothing to offer her.

  “Are you all right?”

  The words came out before he could stop them. He moved toward her, unsteady on his feet but not so drunk he’d lost all coordination.

  “Fine.” Her voice was tight. “Just needed a moment.”

  “You’re in pain.”

  “I said I’m fine.”

  He took another step closer. “How bad is it?”

  She didn’t answer. Instead, she reached up and took his left hand. Her fingers closed around his with a grip that made him wince, holding tight enough to hurt.

  She drew in a sharp breath through her teeth and bowed her head, pressing her forehead to his knuckles as if it were the only steady thing in the corridor.

  Gale stood frozen, his hand trapped in hers, feeling her pulse hammer against his palm. The pain in her grip was deliberate—not cruelty, but need.

  Slowly, the tension in her shoulders eased. Her breathing deepened. The worst of whatever had driven her from the hall seemed to pass.

  But she didn’t let go.

  “You should get back,” he said. His voice sounded strange to his own ears. “They’ll notice you’re gone.”

  Her grip tightened. She tugged his arm, pulling him down onto the bench beside her. He sank down, unsteady, while she leaned into him.

  For a long moment, neither of them spoke. The music played on, distant and mocking. Fran shifted closer, threading her arm through his, pressing against his side with a determination that felt like drowning.

  “I miss us,” she whispered.

  Three words. Simple. Devastating.

  Not I miss you—that would be about him, about wanting him back. This was different. Us. The partnership. The thing they’d built together. The late nights in her study and the arguments over breakfast and the way he used to make her laugh when she forgot she was allowed to.

  The thing he’d killed when he’d cast the Severance.

  “Fran.” Her name caught in his throat. The wine made everything softer, blurrier, but it couldn’t touch the ache beneath. “I need to tell you something.”

  She looked up at him. Waiting.

  “In Kentar, I—” The mark flared, ice spreading up his forearm. He pushed through it. “There was a boy. Daimon. I told you about him—you almost met him in Durnhal. I was there thanks to him.”

  “I remember,” Fran said quietly. “You sounded… fond.”

  “I am.” He sighed. “Anyway, Dai… He was—”

  Cold. Cold like death, like the void, like the moment the curse had left his hand and—

  “He was connected to Ressan’s work, and I—”

  His vision greyed at the edges. The mark burned frozen fire beneath his sleeve. But he kept going, kept forcing the words out, because she deserved to know, she deserved the truth, she deserved—

  “Master Dekarios! Your Grace!”

  The voice shattered the moment like glass.

  Gale looked up to find two young nobles stumbling down the corridor, cheeks flushed with wine and poorly suppressed giggles. Lord Ashford’s son and some companion, clearly seeking a private corner for their own purposes.

  They froze when they saw who occupied the alcove.

  “Oh.” The taller one—Ashford’s boy—attempted a bow that nearly toppled him. “Apologies. Didn’t mean to—we were just—”

  “Looking for the gardens,” his companion supplied, equally unsteady. “Wrong turn. Terribly sorry.”

  They retreated in a flurry of mumbled courtesies and stifled laughter.

  The silence they left behind was different. Heavier. The moment had passed—Gale could feel it, the window closing, the words retreating back down his throat to wherever they’d been hiding.

  Fran’s arm was still threaded through his. But her grip had loosened.

  “We should go back,” she said quietly. “They’ll be talking.”

  Let them talk, he wanted to say. Let them say whatever they want. Just let me finish, let me tell you, let me—

  But the mark throbbed cold, and his tongue felt thick, and the courage that had briefly surfaced was gone.

  “Yes,” he said. “We should.”

  She rose first, smoothing her skirts as she moved. He watched her compose herself—spine straightening, mask sliding back into place, the Duchess emerging from whatever brief vulnerability she’d allowed.

  When she turned to him, her expression was serene and distant.

  “Thank you,” she said. “For sitting with me.”

  I didn’t do anything. I never do anything. I just sit and drink and fail you in new and creative ways.

  “Of course.”

  She walked back toward the Great Hall without waiting for him.

  Gale remained on the bench, staring at the tapestry across the corridor. Hunting scene. Hounds and horses and something fleeing through the trees.

  The music had stopped. A new piece was beginning—something livelier, less haunted.

  When he finally rose and returned to the celebration, the first thing he heard was a voice, carrying with deliberate clarity: “—saw them coming out of the east corridor together. Both rather flushed, if you know what I mean—”

  “Well. Even the Iron Duchess has a heart. Mage-shaped, apparently.”

  Laughter, light and knowing.

  Across the room, Fran stood surrounded by courtiers, smiling at something Lady Kilridge was saying. She didn’t look at him. Didn’t acknowledge his presence. The mask was perfect, seamless, showing nothing of the woman who’d whispered I miss us in a darkened alcove.

  The court saw what it wanted to see: a couple stealing private moments. Romance despite the rumors. Hope for the delayed wedding.

  Gale knew what they’d actually seen: two people drowning in the same room, reaching for each other, and still somehow missing.

  He lingered at the edge of the hall for a moment longer. Then he turned, walked back out into the corridor, and didn’t stop until he reached the wine cellar.