They did not let me stay alone with Ethan.
Hands pulled me away from his body, gentle at first, then firmer when I stopped responding, when my fingers refused to let go of his sleeve, when my eyes refused to leave his face as if staring hard enough could force breath back into his lungs. The princes filled the library in waves, boots, armor, voices, power, grief colliding into a storm that swallowed the quiet. Someone covered Ethan with a cloak. Someone said his name like a prayer. Someone swore. Someone else punched a shelf hard enough to make old books rain down like startled birds.
I felt none of it properly. Shock wrapped me in cotton. The world moved, but I lagged behind it, watching from a distance as if this was happening to another boy, another palace, another life.
Aiden was the first to really look at me.
Not at the room. Not at the body. At me.
