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Helianth rolled his eyes. “Light. What an asshole.”

The words should have settled it, but they didn’t. Ryneth’s skin still thrummed when he thought about him. Daven’s bed had started to feel too warm to leave, and his absence had started to feel wrong. That scared Ryneth more than anything.

“My fellow Helions.” Imperial Milanov’s voice rolled across the courtyard from the suspended holo-screen.

Ryneth jerked and looked up. He had been so caught up in his own thoughts that he hadn’t even noticed the screen activate.

“We have come here together today with great news.”

A hush spread through the gathered students. Helianth stilled beside him, and Mirel shifted a little closer on his other side, his shoulder brushing Ryneth’s arm. Archer muttered something under his breath from just behind them, but Ryneth barely caught it.

Moargan stood beside Milanov in a white cape with the hood trimmed in pale fur. Both men’s blond hair had been styled for the broadcast, their expressions composed in that polished way Ryneth had already learned to distrust.

“My nephew, Daven Caelith, has found his match. Today, in front of you, he will make his public claim.”

Daven stepped into view.

His hair was immaculate, his jaw set, that familiar smirk already in place. The one Ryneth had come to hate. The one his body still answered to in ways that made no sense.

His breath caught.

“My dear Helions,” Daven began. “I thank you for your attention⁠—”

Imperial Milanov stepped forward again before he could continue.

“Everyone remain calm. Justice will be delivered for those taken from us. We will not allow criminal organizations to spread terror in our world. Our hospitals are already feeling the consequences of Attica’s poison. This will be addressed. The Imperial family stands united. Helion remains protected.”

He paused, letting the silence hold.

“As tradition demands, an Aureate will follow. A national celebration of the union. The date will be announced. The public claim is made today. Their bonding will take place tonight. In private.”

Around them, the courtyard broke into cheers.

Ryneth stopped breathing.

He had known. Or at least feared. Public meant public. He had understood that much the moment Daven said it last night, and even this morning the words had sat in his chest like a stone. But some part of him, some stubborn, frightened part that still thought like a boy from the Ward, had kept insisting Daven would never truly do it. A prince might want to fuck him. A prince might drag him into bed and talk about possession like it was a game. But claiming him in front of the whole planet was something else.

And Daven had done it anyway.

Heat rushed into his face so fast it made his eyes sting. Goosebumps swept over his skin. His stomach dropped hard enough to hurt, and under all of it, beneath the fear and the humiliation and the rising pressure in his chest, the thrum in his blood answered all the same, warm and traitorous.

Daven lifted his gaze toward the camera with slow, deliberate ease.

“And to the one who thinks he can hide in a crowd,” he said, his smile sharpening as the words landed, “I’ll finish what I started tonight.”

A wave of gasps rolled through the courtyard. Somewhere to his left, Helianth swore under his breath. Mirel made a small sound that might have been surprise, and Archer shifted behind them, suddenly too close, too present, while the students around them began looking from the screen to the crowd as if the whole courtyard had turned into a hunt.

Ryneth barely heard any of it.

His thoughts crashed over one another too fast to follow. If he kept his head down, if he stood still enough, if he stopped breathing, maybe he could disappear into the bodies around him. Maybe he could vanish before anyone traced the shape of Daven’s words back to him.

The thrum under his skin only grew stronger.

Goosebumps rose along the back of his neck as the weight of a hundred glances seemed to settle over him all at once. He could feel them. Light, he could fucking feel them.

He shifted, trying to stand, but a firm hand closed around his arm before he got far.

Vandor.