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The ground beneath my feet feels unsteady, but I force my gaze back to Oberon.

The soldiers are looking at the stronghold, their eyes wide with disbelief, their faces etched with surprise. This wasn’t the reaction of men who had planned an invasion. This was something else. They have been searching for this place. They have looked for it time and time again, and yet, here they are, standing at the edge of the clearing, seeing it with their own eyes for the first time.

It is as though the very sight of it is impossible to comprehend.

Oberon turns back to me then.

For the first time, I force his gaze to meet mine, desperate for something, anything, resembling the male I once knew.

But it isn’t me he is looking at. His eyes don’t find mine. They don’t linger on my face.

Instead, they dart over me, past me, focusing on the stronghold behind me, the one that was once our sanctuary.

Oberon takes in the sight before him, his gaze flicking to Keagan. Realization strikes. Keagan can see it too. They all can.

For the briefest moment, panic etches itself across Oberon’s face before he forces it back behind the cold indifference he has been wearing. His expression shifted, his eyes widening as if he were snapping out of some fog. It was subtle, almost imperceptible, but I saw it. A flicker of something, shock? Realization? Fear?

The muscle in his jaw tightened.

My heart stutters in my chest as a tremor of uncertainty shudders through me. It was barely noticeable, but it was there. That flicker of something I can’t quite name.

Keagan saw it too.

A slow, knowing smile curls at the edges of his lips, his amusement sharp enough to cut.

The air goes cold. I can feel it, his change, his unease, and it sends a shiver down my spine.

The sight of the fortress unsettled Oberon. I can’t understand it. It doesn’t fit. And that flicker, that moment of vulnerability, it is all wrong. My stomach twists, unease curling deeper inside me.

I clench my fists, my nails digging deep as I fight to keep my breathing steady. Keagan. The sight of him sends a bolt of ice through my veins. I can still feel his claws at my throat, still hear his voice, cold and taunting as he nearly ended me.

My heart pounds erratically, torn between instinct and reason.

Part of me still wants to reach for Oberon, to hold onto whatever fragile piece of him remains. But that flicker in his eyes, that fleeting crack in his composure, keeps me frozen in place.

Something is wrong.

With a single, silent command from Keagan, the soldiers move.

Then, all at once, the battle erupts.

Soldiers surge from both sides, the ground trembling beneath the weight of their charge. The clash of steel against steel rings in my ears, sharp and deafening, while the squelch of blood-soaked earth and the cries of the dying weave a grim symphony in the chaos.

Oberon and I stand frozen, separated by the battlefield that tore itself open between us. Smoke curls in the space between us, thick and choking, blurring his figure in the distance.

Yet even through the haze, I think I see something in his face, a flicker of something in his eyes.

The fight rages on, bodies clashing, blades striking with brutal finality. But for just a breath, time seems to fracture, trapping me in the horror of what has begun.

He doesn’t move either.

It is as if we are both suspended in time, caught between the gravity of the situation and the unspoken realization that nothing is as it should be.

The world around us explodes in violence, but all I can see is him.

The tension in his posture is palpable, but it isn’t from the battle raging at his feet. Something tells me he is just as lost in this moment as I am.

A wall of soldiers, blades flashing and bodies shifting, stands between us, separating us from any hope of connecting.