The citadel was quiet.
Too quiet.
Ariya stood alone in the chamber, the chains around her wrists glowing faintly blue with spell-binding frost. Ruvan's power. Not cruel — just… cold. Just like him.
Her fire pulsed beneath her skin, aching to be released, but the runes etched into the stone walls dampened her magic. She was a flame trapped in glass, too dangerous to let free, too powerful to extinguish.
Footsteps echoed. Not guards. She already knew the pattern.
Ruvan.
He entered without armor. No sword. No crown. Just shadows in his eyes and tension in his jaw. He looked like a prince who had won everything — and regretted it.
"I expected you to try and escape by now," he said quietly.
Ariya didn't look at him. "I did. Twice."
"And?"
She tugged her wrists slightly. "You planned too well."
Silence stretched. The air between them wasn't cold, not really. It was heavy. Full of things neither dared to name — regret, pride, fear… something dangerously close to grief.
Ruvan stepped closer. "You're not a prisoner," he said, not for the first time. "You're—"
"—a guest?" she snapped. "A guest in a cell? Bound by spells?"
His gaze darkened. "You're here because I had no choice."
"You always have a choice."
"And you chose to fight me." His voice was low now, raw. "You were already injured. You knew you'd lose. Why didn't you run?"
"Because if I did… someone else would've paid the price." Her eyes met his. "Because I'm not a coward. And maybe I needed to see what kind of monster you really are."
Ruvan flinched.
Neither of them spoke for a while.
Then he said, softer than she'd ever heard, "I didn't want to hurt you."
"But you did."
"Yes." His voice cracked, barely. "And yet… you're still here. You could've let the fire consume this place. You didn't."
Ariya looked away. "You think that makes me noble?"
"I think," he said, stepping even closer, "it means you're stronger than I ever was."
She didn't answer. Her breath came slow and shallow. The bond between them — the mark that tied them — pulsed faintly under her skin. It reacted to him, always had. She didn't know if it was magic or fate or just a cruel trick.
But it was real.
And it scared her more than any prison.
"Tell me something," she asked, voice low. "If I had killed you that day… would you have let me?"
Ruvan looked at her — not as a prince, not as an enemy — but as a boy who didn't know what came next.
"…Yes."
The answer hit her like a punch.
Ariya turned away, afraid he'd see the storm in her eyes. She didn't know if it was anger, sorrow, or something far more dangerous.
Maybe the worst part wasn't that he'd captured her.
Maybe it was that part of her understood him.