Elara stared at him. The machine had no protocol for this. There was no administrative response for the sheer, overwhelming devotion of a man who would gladly let himself be poisoned just to prove he was hers.
She leaned down, pressing her forehead gently against his, her hands resting flat against the carpet on either side of his head.
"You are an idiot," Elara whispered, the words carrying an unfamiliar, trembling weight.
"I'm your idiot," Julian corrected softly, his eyes sliding shut as exhaustion finally claimed him. "And you... you are officially off the market, Your Highness."
Elara stayed there on the floor long after he fell asleep. She didn't return to her desk. She didn't open a single ledger. For the first time in her terrifying, calculated life, the Empress Regent simply sat in the quiet, watching her husband breathe, realizing that the most dangerous variable in her empire was also the only thing keeping her human.
