(Romulus POV)
Morning came without mercy.
The sun rose over the oasis with the same indifferent brilliance it always had, gilding stone and water alike, as if nothing beneath it had shifted. Yet I felt the difference immediately—like waking with the imprint of a dream that refused to fade.
I saw it again, unbidden.
The way Almera had leaned toward me the night before. The way her gaze lingered—not searching, not pleading, but choosing. And beyond her, at the edge of that same terrace, Arthur standing still as stone, watching with a restraint that mirrored my own.
Nothing had been said.
Nothing had been claimed.
And yet something irreversible had taken place.
I dressed slowly, deliberately, grounding myself in routine. The feel of fabric, the weight of a ring, the measured cadence of breath—these were the things that kept an emperor steady when emotion threatened to outrun reason.
Do not mistake awareness for possession, I reminded myself.
