Cyrus hadn't meant to linger.
He had stayed out of respect—for Ilyana—but he'd already begun to calculate his exit. A breeze stirred the grass around his feet, but he remained still—balanced just on the edge of leaving.
Another minute and he would have disappeared into the treeline like smoke, unnoticed, unseen.
But then... Isabella's name was spoken.
And everything inside him stilled.
His ears twitched faintly, a reflex. His gaze—previously dull with boredom and mild discomfort—snapped into sharp focus. The name dropped like a stone into a still lake, disrupting something that had been carefully held beneath the surface.
He didn't move a muscle.
He didn't have to.
But something about him grew... watchful.
A part of him had once thought it would be easy to walk away. To let Ilyana settle her chaos with her sister and be done with this strange little drama. But now?
He didn't feel like leaving anymore.
