He watched her for a moment.
The tension had drained from her face, replaced by something unguarded.
Vulnerability. Something real.
She trusts me, he thought.
That realization stayed with him as he closed his eyes.
And for the first time since the future had begun to split—
A little later, he fell asleep.
They slept peacefully.
Morning arrived quietly.
Thin light filtered through the high windows, catching dust in the air and spreading gold across the room. Riana did not wake all at once, but slowly. Her awareness returned in fragments.
Warmth beside her.
An unfamiliar ceiling.
The steady rise and fall of someone else's breath.
I froze.
For a while, I didn't move. I didn't think. I only listened. Claude lay beside me, turned slightly away, one arm folded beneath his head. He looked different. His sleeping face held less vigilance; the sharp edges softened into something almost… human.
My ears burned. Carefully, as though a single wrong movement might shatter this fragile stillness, I sat up and slipped out of the bed. My feet touched the floor. Cold stone grounded me in reality.
Why am I in his bed?
"I didn't mean to—" I stopped myself.
Claude stirred.
His eyes opened, unfocused at first, then gradually finding me—standing there, hair loose. His expression hovered somewhere between embarrassment and relief.
"You fell asleep," he said evenly.
"I know." I hesitated. "I'm sorry."
"For what?"
I searched his face, expecting distance, irritation, regret.
There was none.
"You needed rest," he said, sitting up. "You haven't been getting any."
Silence stretched between us. It wasn't uncomfortable. Just… new.
I clasped my hands together.
"You don't believe everything I said."
"No," he admitted. Then, after a pause, "But I believe that you believe it."
That meant more than I'd expected.
I let out a small breath.
"That's enough for now."
Claude stood and closed the distance between us not touching, but close enough that I felt the shift in the air.
"You don't have to carry it alone," he said. "Even if I don't understand it yet."
I looked up and met his eyes.
"I know."
As I turned to leave, he called my name.
"Rihanna."
I looked back.
"You can come again tonight," he said calmly. "If you need to."
I nodded once.
"Maybe I will."
The truth was, I had no one else.
No one to talk to.
No one who understood or even knew what I was carrying. So somehow, absurdly, this man was all I had.
Amazing, really.
As I left the room, the distance between us felt… slightly smaller.
A day passed, and still nothing made sense.
I stood hunched over a table in my room, papers scattered everywhere. Names. Notes. Possibilities. Every woman who might matter to Claude—every face that could fit the future I'd seen.
None of them did.
I pressed my fingers into the edge of the table and stared down at the mess.
The answer was in here somewhere.
I just hadn't found it yet.
Nothing fit. None of it made sense.
A knock broke the silence.
When I opened the door, Claude was there. He didn't wait for an invitation—just walked in and stretched out on the bed as if it belonged to him.
"I thought I'd keep you company," he said casually.
I sighed inwardly. Of all times.
His presence was… sweet. Annoying, but sweet and utterly unhelpful to my already tangled thoughts.
Time passed quietly. The scrape of pen on paper. The faint creak of the floor.
At some point, he fell asleep.
I barely noticed. I was too focused on the names spread across the desk, trying to force them into futures that refused to make sense.
Eventually, exhaustion won.
My head dropped onto the table, and the world went dark.
Morning came.
I pushed myself upright.
"You didn't leave," I said.
"I live here," he replied evenly.
A brief silence.
"I shouldn't have told you everything last night," I added.
Claude turned slightly just enough to look at me.
"You didn't tell me everything."
It wasn't an accusation. Just a fact.
I didn't answer.
He continued, calm but firm.
"You said I start a war. Over a woman. That's all."
"You still don't believe me," I said.
"I believe you're afraid," he corrected. "And that you think you're protecting something."
Then, more coldly:
"I don't believe in prophecies."
That was fair.
I pushed aside the chair blocking my way.
"You don't have to. I won't bring it up again."
"That's not what I said."
I looked at him.
"If you're wrong," Claude continued, "then you're overreacting to court politics."
"If you're right—" his eyes sharpened as he paused, "then someone very close to me is in danger."
Silence stretched long.
"I have no intention of falling in love," he said at last.
"So the future you saw… won't come easily."
I almost laughed. Almost.
"That's all," I said.
He didn't ask who the woman was.
And I didn't say.
Instead, he stepped aside. Another choice. Another quiet permission.
As I passed him, he spoke again.
"You can use the library tonight," he said.
"The bedroom isn't suitable for studying."
It wasn't comfort.
It wasn't trust.
It was access.
That was enough.
As I left the room, I knew two things:
Claude didn't believe me.
And yet, he was already changing his behavior.
Which meant the future wasn't fixed.
I was watching it move.
That night, I didn't stay in the castle.
I changed clothes plain, unremarkable. I tied my hair back and hid everything that marked me as royalty. By the time I slipped out through the servants' entrance, I was just another shadow swallowed by the city.
The streets were alive. Loud in a way the palace never was. Merchants shouting, children running, laughter spilling from taverns. Life. Ordinary, careless life.
I walked quietly through it.
I brushed past people on purpose.
The arm of a baker.
A soldier's hand.
A woman clutching her basket too tightly.
Visions came like shards.
Not clear futures, but fragments. Sensations. Endings without beginnings.
Fire again.
Always fire.