The first sensation was a throbbing, white-hot knot of pain just above his right temple. It pulsed in time with his heartbeat, a dull, angry drumbeat pulling him up from the depths of unconsciousness.
The second was a smell. Not blood, or smoke, or ozone. Something sharp and chemical, clawing at his sinuses, dragging him kicking and screaming back to the waking world.
Amir Zen groaned, the sound rough and alien in his own throat. His eyelids fluttered open, but his vision swam, a blur of muted gold and deep violet. He was lying on something impossibly soft. A carpet? No, too plush. A bed? The thought was absurd.
He tried to sit up. A lance of fresh fire shot from his ribs, and a wave of nausea forced him back down with another groan.
"Don't move."
The voice was female, young, and laced with a tension so sharp it could cut glass. It came from his left.
Blinking rapidly, Amir's vision began to clear. The gold was from gilded furniture. The violet was from silk drapes. He was in a room of obscene opulence, a stark, almost offensive contrast to the blood-soaked hallway he last remembered. And kneeling a few feet away, her posture rigid, was the source of the voice.
The Princess.
Seraphina.
She was watching him with the wide, unblinking eyes of a cornered animal. Her beauty was… disorienting. Even with her elaborate hairstyle half-fallen, powder streaked by tears, and a fine silk gown stained with what looked like soot and… was that his blood?, she was the most breathtaking thing he'd seen in this godforsaken world. It was a classical, untouchable beauty, like the statues of goddesses he'd seen in museums back on Earth. But there something in her eyes made her real, made her human.
And then the memory crashed over him like a cold wave.
The fight in the hall. Kael. The Blade Master's save. Turning towards the door… and then…
His hand came up, fingers gingerly probing the source of the throbbing. He winced as they found the tender, swollen lump. His eyes locked with hers, a slow, dawning realization settling in the pit of his stomach.
"You," he croaked, Amir's voice dry as dust. He swallowed, trying to muster moisture. It came out as a gritty, pissed-off whisper. "You threw a fucking vase at me? A vase? Really, miss?"
Seraphina flinched as if he'd shouted. Her chin lifted a fraction, a flicker of regal defiance trying to mask the sheer panic beneath. "You were breaking down my door! I thought you were one of them!"
First of all the person who broke your door was Blade master. the person who was with me wearing creepy mask remember ?
by the way you said THEM what do you mean by that ? Amir pushed himself up onto his elbows, ignoring the scream from his ribs. The movement made his head spin. You mean the ones I was just fighting? Miss you got an wrong idea i was fighting them to keep them off from entering your room.
He gestured vaguely towards the door, his movement sharp with pain and frustration. "Lady, if I was with them, you'd be dead. I wouldn't be lying here with a concussion from your… your home decor!"
The defiance in her eyes crumbled, replaced by a flood of shame. She looked down at her hands, clenched tightly in her lap. "I… I didn't know," she whispered, the words barely audible. "Blade Master… he said… he said you were holding the door for me."
The fight went out of Amir as quickly as it had flared. He slumped back, exhaustion weighing down every limb. He looked at her—really looked. She wasn't a princess in that moment. She was a terrified young woman who had just been told she was a political bargaining chip, then had her home invaded by assassins & rebels, and had resorted to using a vase as a weapon. He, of all people, knew what it was like to be backed into a corner with only desperate, stupid options.
Yeah, well," he grunted, closing his eyes against the throbbing in his skull. "I was
A heavy silence filled the space between them, thick and uncomfortable. The distant, final echoes of the battle seemed to have ceased, leaving behind an eerie quiet. They were alone, adrift in a sea of velvet and silence.
He heard a soft rustle of fabric. Cracking an eye open, he saw her shifting, moving closer on her knees. She reached for a small, ornate bowl of water he hadn't noticed before and a torn piece of violet silk.
"What are you doing?" he asked, his tone wary.
"Your… your head is bleeding," she said, not meeting his eyes. She sounded uncertain, as if reciting a line from a play she'd never rehearsed.
Before he could protest, she leaned in. The scent of her—jasmine and fear—cut through the chemical smell of the salts. Her hand, trembling slightly, dabbed at the cut on his temple with the damp cloth. It was clumsy. The water was cold. She was a princess; she'd probably never tended to a wound in her life. But the gesture was so utterly, naively sincere that it stole the air from his lungs.
He watched her face as she worked, her brow furrowed in concentration. He saw the tracks of her tears, the slight tremble of her lower lip. The anger and frustration he'd felt moments ago melted away, leaving behind a strange, hollow ache. An ache of recognition.
"You know," he said quietly, the words leaving his mouth before he could stop them. "Where I'm from, getting knocked out by a beautiful woman usually happens in a very different kind of story."
She froze, the cloth still pressed against his skin. Her eyes, a startling shade of hazel flecked with gold, finally lifted to meet his. There was confusion in them, and a flicker of something else—curiosity? "What kind of story?"
"The kind with less blood and more… well, intention." He managed a weak, pained smirk. "Not 'I think you're here to murder me' intention."
A sound escaped her—a half-sob, half-chuckle that seemed to surprise her as much as it did him. She pulled the cloth away, her cheeks flushing. "I am… deeply sorry. Truly. You saved my life, and I… I assaulted you with a vase."
"Let's just call it a… passionate introduction," Amir murmured. The throbbing in his head was receding, replaced by a strange, warm buzz. Maybe it was the concussion. Maybe it was the way she was looking at him now, the fear replaced by a bewildered, shared amusement.
Her smile faded, the reality of their situation crashing back. "They were going to sell me," she whispered, the words torn from a deep, hidden place. "My mother. To secure a business alliance. I was just… an asset. A thing to be traded."
Amir stared at her, the last of his annoyance evaporating, replaced by a cold, sharp anger that felt cleaner than any emotion he'd felt in weeks. "What the hell?" he interrupted, his voice low but intense. "What kind of parents does that? Have you lost your mind, miss? You're sure?"
Seraphina just nodded, a single, miserable tear tracing a path through the dust on her cheek. The confirmation made his stomach twist.
"Listen to me," Amir said, leaning forward slightly, wincing at the pain but pushing through it. His eyes locked onto hers. "That's not right. That's not how it's supposed to work. Freedom... it's everyone's right. You have the right to do what you want with your own life. You're not a tool. You're not an object."
He saw her breath hitch. She was looking at him like no one had ever spoken those words to her before. Maybe no one had.
"And then all of this…" she continued, her voice barely a whisper, gesturing vaguely at the balcony, at the world outside her room that had fallen apart.
Amir was silent for a moment, the weight of her confession hanging between them. He saw the isolation. He understood cages.
"I watched my friends die," he said, his own voice dropping to a near-whisper. He didn't know why he was telling her this. Maybe because she had confessed her truth, and the silence demanded his in return. "A little girl and her brother. They took me in when I had nothing. They're gone because of me. Because I wasn't strong enough."
He met her gaze, and in that look, an entire conversation passed without words. I see your pain. And I see yours. They weren't a princess and a fugitive. They were just two people, shipwrecked on the same brutal shore, surrounded by the wreckage of the lives they thought they knew.
The air between them changed. The awkwardness was still there, but it was now charged with a fragile, electric understanding.